


You know we're gonna do it right

by Fatale (femme)



Series: happily ever after, kind of [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff, Humor, M/M, just for fun, my goodness so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-05-24 12:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: "So, like, this is--what? A pity date? Good press? Take the poor college kid out, let people see you mingle with the commoners?""No," Magnus says, "I like you."Alec shakes his head. "You don't even know me.""Does anyone ever really know another person?""Boy," Alec says, fiddling with his napkin, "I love philosophy."---A royalty au. Magnus is a prince. Alec is perpetually stressed out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> originally written as a joke-y fic to win a contest, but re-written and here we are. i guess this a technically a repost until the next chapter.
> 
> as always, will write and post, then go back and edit in a week-ish?

 

 

  
Alec is in the library collecting books for his research, a stack of them teetering precariously in his arms when someone backs into him and sends the books flying. This is the library, Alec thinks in horror, staring down at his mess of books on the floor, pages bent and misshapen, spines cracked. Alec breathes deeply through his nose and looks away. This is supposed to be a sacred place of _learning_.

“Hey,” Alec yells, “watch where you’re going--” He trails off when he sees the man who bumped into him. He’s gorgeous. Absolutely _stunning_. And is currently backing away from Alec without offering to help pick up the books or even apologizing, and Alec realizes he’s also a jerk.

The man spins on his heels and hurries off, leaving Alec deeply confused, a little bit angry with a huge mess to clean up, and apologies to offer the irate librarian.

  
\---

  
After class, Alec's beginning his shift at the on-campus café, tying the hideous green apron around his waist, when a familiar figure approaches the counter. He hadn't given much thought to the rude man from earlier, other than a few muttered curses and a general surly disposition that Jace and Izzy said was pretty par for the course from him. "Oh, you're in a bad mood?" Jace asked mildly when Alec explained why he was twenty minutes late and seething.

“You again?” Alec asks, eyes widening. “Hold on! Give me a minute and I’ll pick up something so you can knock it onto the floor.”

The man grins in what Alec assumes he must think is a winsome manner. Alec is deeply unimpressed.

"I’m so sorry about earlier,” the man says, his voice as lovely and smooth as butter. It just annoys Alec more. “Would you let me make it up to you?”

“How?” Alec asks suspiciously.

“We could go on a date?”

“I don’t even know your name,” Alec says. Plus, this guy is an asshole that has no respect for institutions of higher learning.

“My name’s Magnus.”Do you have a last name, Magnus?” Alec asks. “Or just a first name like Madonna and Adele?”

Magnus hesitates. “I’d love to discuss it with you over dinner.”

Biting back his reflexive no, Alec has to give it some serious thought. Magnus _is_ ridiculously handsome. And he did find Alec to apologize, even if it was hours later and in a distressingly louche manner. Alec isn’t entirely sure whether he finds the whole thing creepy or charming, but it’s been a long stretch since his last date. Jace and Izzy say that’s because he’s unpleasant. They may have a point.

“I guess I could,” Alec says slowly.

“Fabulous!” Magnus says, smile genuine and wide. From the back of the café, there’s a commotion. Alec can’t hear what they’re saying, but he thinks he sees photographers. Weird.

Magnus turns and says, “I have to run, but I’ll be by to pick you up after work?”

“Sure,” Alec says, eyes on the crowd. When he turns towards Magnus, he realizes he’s already gone. Magnus didn’t even get his dorm address, so he guesses Magnus will just come by here after closing. It's not the weirdest first date he's been on -- that dubious distinction belongs to another student that kept remarking positively on the size of Alec's feet.

At the end of the date, that student had casually dropped that he was extremely fond of feet, confirming Alec's sneaking suspicion that humans are awful and dating isn't really for him.

Just when Alec is coming around to the idea that he’s made a terrible mistake, yet again, Clary comes pin-wheeling in behind the counter. “Did I just see you talking with Magnus Bane?”

“I guess?” Alec hazards. How many Magnuses can there be?

“Do you know who he is?” Clary asks, eyes wide and excited.

“Some jerk that bumped into me at the library?”

“That’s Magnus Bane, the Crown Prince of Edom," Clary says, peering up at Alec curiously. "He's always in the papers. How do you not know who he is?"

“I mostly stick to the finance section?” Alec says. "What can I say, I like to watch my stocks plummet."

"What a thrilling life you do lead," Clary says, ignoring Alec's half-hearted protest. "But for the rest of the world, he's one of the hottest bachelors around."

"How exciting for me," Alec says, eyeing the line of desperate, tired students forming at the register. "Are you going to get to work any time soon? Or are we just going keep gossiping about boys?"

Though Clary might have the dubious distinction of being his best friend not directly related to him, he doesn't bother to tell her Magnus asked him out. He doesn't think he could stand the humiliation of her inevitable pep-talks trying to convince him that she totally sees what Magnus could possibly want with someone like Alec.

Alec sighs and steps up to the register to take the first order. Now, he _knows_ he made a mistake.

 

\---

 

After the last straggling student leaves, Alec closes up the shop slowly, taking his sweet time, wondering if and when Magnus is going to show up.

After refusing to answer any more of Clary’s questions, he mechanically finishes up his shift, doesn’t let himself think about the fact that he’s about to go on a date with a sleazy-hot prince after making caramel lattes all day for a bunch of finicky college students.

Oh, God, Alec thinks. This makes him Cinderella.

He pulls off his apron, hanging it on the peg next to the timeclock, and counts out the register. Once he finishes that, he realizes he's put off his date as long as possible. He shuts off the lights and clocks out.

Alec goes to the door, locking it behind him. Outside, Magnus is leaning against the wall and wearing all black, shirt half-unbuttoned. Oh, _honestly_. He looks like a cross between a pirate and a mob boss, but it’s kind of working for him. Alec feels underdressed in a ratty t-shirt with even rattier running shoes, but it’s not like he planned to go out with actual royalty when tumbling out of bed this morning.

“Hey,” Alec says, waving a little lamely and wishing he’d at least worn his clean jeans.

“Alexander,” Magnus says expansively, holding his arms out.

Alec looks around, but there’s no sign of a car. “Are we walking?”

Magnus looks embarrassed. “I don’t drive. I do have a driver, but I thought we could use some privacy.”

Alec feels both of his eyebrows try to crawl into his hairline. “I don’t know what you heard about me, but I don’t go all the way on the first date. I’m not that kind of girl,” he says dryly.

Magnus shrugs, grinning unrepentantly. “I am but sadly, the privacy isn’t for that. I thought we should talk.”

  
\---

 

They settle in a nearby restaurant with narrow, rounded booths, and intimate lighting. Magnus orders the most expensive wine on the menu and Alec tries desperately to figure out the French menu, then gives up and hands the menu to Magnus to order something for him. Pride is overrated where food is concerned.

"Just no brains or organs," Alec specifies, wondering why his day has become so bizarre that this is a thing that would need to be said aloud.

"Got it," Magnus says and orders in easy, fluid French when their waiter arrives.

"So, you wanted to talk?" Alec asks, twisting his dark burgundy napkin in his lap. Everything about this place screams, _You're too poor to be here!_ Alec mostly agrees.

Magnus sighs and takes a delicate sip of his wine. "I'm sure you've learned by now that I'm from a certain family."

"Clary told me you were a prince or something and not like the musician, but the boring kind like on playing cards."

"I--" Magnus seems too flabbergasted to continue for a moment, then visibly collects himself. "Sure, I guess very technically, that is correct."

"So, like, this is--what? A pity date? Good press? Take the poor college kid out, let people see you mingle with the commoners?"

"No," Magnus says, "I like you."

Alec shakes his head. "You don't even know me."

"Does anyone ever really know another person?"

"Boy," Alec says, fiddling with his napkin. "I love philosophy."

Magnus smiles. "How do you think people get to know each other?"

It feels like a trick question. Alec admits, "I don't know."

"By going on dates,” Magnus says simply, “and talking.”

Alec deflates a little. Magnus is a being a bit precious about it, but that doesn't mean he isn't right. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this."

"I do know some stuff about you, Alec. You spend too much time at the library, carry way too many books. I know you hate people that have overly complicated drink orders, but you love your job. I know that short redhead you work with gets on your nerves, but you would fight someone for her."

Alec sits back in his chair. "You're observant," he allows as the waiter brings their food and sets it in front of them. Steak with some kind of buttery sauce on it. His mouth waters just smelling it, but he wants to at least give the illusion of being dignified for the first few minutes. He cuts a small piece of steak and tastes it, sighing contentedly as the meat practically melts in his mouth and licks the sauce off his lips.

From across the table, Magnus watches intently, dark eyes unreadable.

"You going to eat yours?" Alec asks, taking a drink of his wine. Dry and fruity. Not his favorite, but then again, wine never is. It's basically fermented grapes. He has an old bottle of juice in his tiny fridge that's practically the same thing as far as he's concerned.

Magnus blinks, then says, "Y-yes. I'm going to eat," as he starts in on his food.

 

\---

 

Magnus offers to walk him back to the dorm room he’s shared with Jace since freshman year.

All in all, it hasn’t been a bad date. Magnus is kind, witty, full of funny stories that Alec only half-believes. He’s surprised to find that he wouldn’t mind doing it again.

“I’d call this a success,” Magnus says, fiddling with a silver sing set with a large black stone. Alec doesn’t know what it means yet, but he thinks he’d like to find out. “Any chance I could talk you into another meal while I watch you lick your lips in a positively sinful manner after each bite?”

Alec flushes. “I didn’t do that,” he protests, then thinks back. “Did I?”

“I can assure you that you did. I was most concerned for your virtue.” Magnus walks slightly ahead, long strides easy and graceful. Even his goddamn walk is fancy, Alec thinks grimly.

“From steak?”

“From the waitstaff, from everyone. Surely you saw people staring?”

He did see the lingering glances, but they were all aimed at his date. “I noticed people looking at you.”

Magnus turns to face him. “You really have no clue, do you?”

Alec stops up short. “About what?” he asks, proving Magnus’ point.

Magnus leans in close, close enough that Alec can smell the sweet tang of wine on his breath. “About how lovely you are.”

Alec has never felt lovely, especially when standing next to someone who seems to exist mostly to make him feel grubby and like the broke college kid he is. But staring into Magnus’ eyes, seeing himself reflected back somehow shinier, the very best version of himself, he thinks he’d like to be what Magnus sees.

With that, he closes the last few inches between them, pressing his lips against Magnus’, a brief impression of softness and warmth before Magnus pulls away. “I thought you weren’t a first date kind of guy?”

“I thought you were,” Alec challenges.

“I usually am, but I think you might be different, Alexander,” Magnus says and looks up, Alec’s dormitory a looming and unwelcome shadow in front of them.

Alec sighs and stuffs his hands in his pockets. It would figure that the first time he decides, fuck it, and just goes for it--

Magnus steps close again, breath tickling the hair brushing against Alec’s ear. “I’m restraining myself this time but next time? Darling, I make no promises.”

 

\---

 

Alec wanders into his dorm room, dazed. There is something about Magnus that makes him feel --

He’s always been too messy, too tall, too gauche. Next to Magnus’ sleekness, he feels like an awkward dumbass, an inelegant American crashing through narrow European streets, wearing Bermuda shorts and mirrored wrap-around sunglasses.

But Magnus seems to like him anyway.

In their shared room, both beds are pushed together where Jace is sprawled across them, snoring loudly. "Hey, get off," Alec shouts and shoves Jace roughly.

Jace hits the floor with a yelp and dull thud. "You fucker!"

"I told you not to make Megatron Bed when I'm out," Alec says, irritated and a just little amused, a state he often finds himself in when dealing with Jace. No one in his life pisses him off more or makes him laugh harder.

"But it's so comfy," Jace mumbles, rubbing the back of his head. "Besides, it's not like you ever leave our room much, except for class and work."

Jace isn't wrong; it's annoying all the same.

Alec scowls at him and stomps over to their mini fridge. It's mostly full of shitty Natty Light, but Alec has some bottles of Gatorade tucked in the back to help Jace through his worst hangovers. He grabs an orange one from the back, grimacing. Orange ones only suck marginally less than the yellow, but it was all the store had in stock during his weekly shopping trip. He goes once a week without fail, meticulously makes his list and gets everything on it. In the rare instance, the store is out or he forgets something, Alec has just learned to do without.

He twists off the cap and takes a sip, making a terrible face. It's fine.

"So, you were out late tonight," Jace observes from his bed, finally separated and pushed back against the far wall. "Hot date?"

"Maybe," Alec says, avoiding Jace‘s probing gaze. He strips off his shirt and changes into his nightshirt, which doesn't actually look better or worse than the one he had on. Alec carefully sniffs the shirt he took off, decides it's clean again for another wear and slings it over his desk chair.

He kicks off his shoes and strips down to his boxers before throwing back the thin comforter and slipping into his uncomfortable bed. His feet hang off the end, have for years now, and he's just gotten used to waking scrunched up with a crick in his neck.

"So, if you two get married, does that make you a princess?"

Alec sits up, throwing back his covers. "You _little shit_ , you knew all about my date."

Jace is grinning unrepentantly. "Clary might have posted a notice on the bulletin board."

"Fuck," Alec says, rolling his eyes. "It was just one date."

"Must have been a pretty good one," Jace says, eyeing Alec speculatively. "You're all--glowy."

"I'm not--that's ridiculous." Alec coughs, can feel his face heating. He blushes so unattractively, blotches blooming on his cheeks and neck, ears bright red. "It was fine," Alec says, remembering the way Magnus' breath tickled his neck as he leaned close, voice low, and promised Alec a next time.

Jace hums. "Have fun with him, but don't like--expect too much."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alec asks. "We've been on one date. I'm not going to start wearing his Letterman jacket and class ring."

"See that you don't," Jace says sagely. "I've read the papers, I know things."

"You don't know shit," Alec says out of a weird compulsory need to be mean to his little brother, then relents. "What do you know?"

"He doesn't settle down, Alec. He just goes from person to person, using people and then throwing them away like helpless milkmaids in the gutter.”

“Am I the helpless milkmaid in this scenario?” Alec asks with great and terrible suspicion.

“Maybe,” Jace hedges. “It's not a bad thing, dude. You could stand to have a little fun. But don't get attached, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Alec says, deflating a little. He doesn't keep up with current events except for boring stuff like the economy and stock prices because he is dull and tedious and a worrier by nature, and all night he's been fighting the feeling that all the romantic gestures, the dinner, the walk afterward, were carefully planned, tried and true methods of seduction. In retrospect, it all seems so calculated.

He feels a little foolish and he'd like to say it's a new feeling, but disappointment is an old bedfellow of his, the only one he's had in a long time. "I'll be careful," he promises Jace, watching Jace nod in satisfaction and scratch his balls.

Really, Jace is so fucking appalling, but he's watching out for Alec.

He might be the only one who is, Alec thinks, flipping off the lights and settling in to sleep.

 

\---

  
Alec rolls out of bed fifteen minutes late for his class and pulls on last’s night’s clothes. He awkwardly races across campus while eating a microwaved Hot Pocket, cheese burning his tongue as he sucks in mouthfuls of cool air in between bites. He’s in a such a hurry, he almost doesn’t pay any attention to the newsstand except that there’s a very familiar picture splashed across the front of a tabloid.

It’s the café where he works, and Alec sees himself standing behind the counter looking unimpressed and counting money. He’d known there were photographers at his work yesterday but assumed they were there to get pictures of Magnus. He fishes around for a couple of dollars and hands them over, taking the newspaper with cheese-crusted fingers.

“PLAYBOY PRINCE HAS NEW BOY TOY?”

It’s a lurid headline and not even a particularly well-worded one, but it gets the job done. It certainly caught Alec’s attention. Alec stares down, horrified, at the article, which outlines all his many man-eating wiles.

Alec is the opposite of a maneater. He’s a no-person-at-all-eater. If he’s some kind of college lothario hooking up with International Playboys, then Jace is Miss America in the swimsuit round, complete with teased hair and butt glue.

He shoves the paper into his bookbag and keeps going to class, imagining that every stray glance is someone looking at his stained shirt and sticky hands and thinking about what a hussy he must be.

It’s a long, shameful walk.

When Alec gets to his lecture hall, he slinks into a seat all the way in the back, head bent down low. Just when he thinks he’s in the clear and breathes a sigh of relief, his phone rings. A few hundred heads swivel around to look at him, and blushing furiously, Alec checks to see who it is. It’s Magnus, the bane of his existence, ha ha. Alec furiously rejects the call and turns his phone off, sliding it into his pocket and pulling his laptop out of his bag to start taking notes.

He has a feeling it's going to be a long day.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, i have lost my goddamn mind and this is going to be much longer than anticipated. fight me! or come yell at tv networks with me on twitter: @fatalewrites

 

  
Magnus calls again twice after his class lets out, which distressingly suggests more than a passing familiarity with Alec’s schedule.

Izzy meets him in the quad, watching with shrewd eyes as he silences his phone again. “Is this the hot prince you went on a date with?”

Alec rounds on her. “How in the _hell_ do you know about it?”

She shrugs. “Everyone in the dorm knows.”

“You don’t even live in my dorm,” Alec points out.

“Did I say the whole dorm knows? I mean the whole school. Oops, sorry.” She doesn't sound sorry.

Alec follows her into the dining hall, complete with multiple fast food joints that don't taste the same as the ones off campus, a sad salad bar, and a 7-eleven style convenience store that sells four tampons for $5. 

She grabs a tray from the end of the salad bar and hands one to Alec, then picks a foil-wrapped chicken sandwich and diet soda. Frowning, Alec gets a salad. What he really wants is a hamburger, but he knows they're bad for his LDLs, but he's too afraid to get the bloodwork done to check. Every time his left arm tingles, Alec's sure he has cancer. He figures if anyone's unfortunate enough to have a heart attack at twenty-one, it’ll be him. What he's going to do when he becomes a real doctor is staggering to think about. He'll probably agree with WebMD printouts and cry with his patients over misshapen moles. 

Aside from an honest-to-god prince asking him out, his life’s basically been one steaming shitpile after another, and the universe even managed to fuck that one up. The prince is no good, likely using him for not not-so-nubile at the moment body.

They get to the register and Alec gets out his wallet to pay, barely sparing a glance for Izzy, who’s studying a poster on the importance of wearing shower shoes in shared bathrooms, because what Alec really wants is to be thinking of foot fungus while eating.

Alec gestures at both their trays and pays the total. As soon as money exchanges hands, the poster stops being so fascinating for Izzy.

“Thanks for getting lunch,” Izzy chirps.

“No problem,” Alec says dryly. He’s not angry. Izzy can get away with pretty much anything and she knows it.

They grab their food and take it outside, settling beneath one of the large oak trees scattered across campus. “So, tell me about your prince," Izzy says between bites of her sandwich.

“He’s not mine,” Alec protests. Just then, because the universe absolutely hates him, his phone rings again. Incensed at Izzy’s bright peals of laughter, Alec answers his phone with a yelled, “Can’t you take a hint? I don’t want to talk to you!”

There’s a pause on the line and then a familiar voice says, “I wanted to remind you that your books are overdue, Mr. Lightwood.”

It’s not actually possible to die of humiliation -- Alec knows this for a fact, has tried and failed on multiple occasions. “I’m sorry,” he stutters. “I’ll return the books today.”

“See that you do,” the librarian says stiffly, then disconnects the call.

Next to him, Izzy’s fallen back on the warm grass, hair splayed out, tears of laughter running down her cheeks.

Entirely against his will, Alec can feel the corners of his mouth turn up. He might not be able to look the librarian in the eyes for a week or two, but it’s still pretty funny.

  
\---

 

Running his books by the library makes him five minutes late to work and he throws himself around the corner and pulls an apron down off the peg, his nametag tucked in the front pocket. He crookedly pins it to the front of his shirt. “Simon’s not in yet, no need to rush,” Clary says from where she’s doodling on the ‘specials of the day’ sign. Alec scowls when he sees the special: Unicorn Frappuccino.

Mythical-flavored anything is bound to be repulsive. What’s next, Chupacabra-flavored muffins? Bigfoot cookies? He doesn’t bother to say anything to Clary, who would just roll her eyes and call him a grump again. She’s singing to herself, swaying her hips, and drawing flowers around the edge of the blackboard. If she wasn’t possibly his best and only friend, he’d be tempted to trip her.

As it is, he’s giving it careful consideration when someone clears their throat at the counter. Alec turns around, resigned to making some dumbass purple drink when he stops in his tracks, because there he is, the prince asshole himself, Magnus Bane.

“What do you want?” Alec hisses.

Magnus looks startled. “You didn’t return my calls.”

“Some would take that as a sign.”

Magnus slides his hands into the pockets of his fitted slacks. He’s wearing a thick gold watch and a crisp button-down shirt with a snug vest. He looks unfairly handsome, like something out of Alec’s wildest vanilla-tinged fantasies.

“I thought we had a good date.” He leans forward, elbows on the counter, insouciant and uncomfortably attractive. It makes Alec furious, and he takes a deep, fortifying breath.

As it turns out, everyone might be kind of right and Alec is maybe a little boring, totally stuck in a rut. Who’s to say a fling with a handsome prince isn’t exactly what’s needed, nosy siblings and suspiciously short co-workers be damned.

“We did,” Alec admits grudgingly.

“Then why the cold shoulder now? I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to, but I needed to make sure you hadn’t heard--things.” Magnus actually looks a little embarrassed, as if alluding to his many bed partners is somehow difficult for him. Oh, yes, it must be _so hard_ to be _so sexy_ and have everyone want to sleep with you.

“I’ve just been busy,” Alec mumbles.

Alec aggressively fills the condiment bar at the end of the counter. He has no doubt he’s just another notch on Magnus’ bedpost, but why not? It beats doing the Sunday Times crossword alone and eating fiber-dense cereal.

“I’m free tonight,” Alec says impulsively, decision made.

Magnus brightens, wide grin spreading across his face, eyes shining. It makes him look young and eager. “Fantastic. Same time?”

“Sure,” Alec says. He’s just agreed to another date with a sexy prince in order to get laid. He should probably shower first. “Uh, better make it an hour later. Meet me at the front of my dorm,” he amends, heart kicking up a notch. Spontaneity isn't really his thing but if Jace is to be believed, college is the perfect opportunity to try new things and pick up perplexing strains of herpes. 

Alec is going to have to take a multivitamin to make up for all the energy he's expending trying new things.

  
\---

  
Magnus pulls up in a car that reminds Alec of him: sleek, expensive, a little too much.

The door pops open and Magnus is lounging in the back. Alec sucks in a breath; it’s like each time between seeing him, he remakes Magnus in his mind, always a little less glamorous, a little less chic, something dimmer than what he really is and when confronted with the reality of him, Alec is newly dazzled all over again. Alec is uncomfortably reminded that Magnus is actual fucking royalty, it’s ridiculous. What is he _doing_ with Alec?

“These are my sometimes-chauffers and fulltime bodyguards,” Magnus says, gesturing at two grim-faced men in the front seat.

“Were they around last time?” Alec asks, disconcerted. Of course, they were. Exactly how self-absorbed _is_ he?

Alec slides into the backseat next to Magnus, trying not to notice how Magnus’ eyes trail up and down his body. He wore the dress-shirt Izzy bought him for his birthday, a dark khaki green that Izzy says matches his eyes. Alec doesn’t see it. His eyes just look a muddy hazel to him, but Izzy certainly knows more about fashion than he does, so he mostly believes her. Jace tells Alec that he’s an embarrassment to gay men everywhere when Alec wears his socks with sandals, but his feet get cold, damnit, and Jace is an embarrassment to humanity, so Alec doesn't see why he should take his word for it.

Green shirt, black jeans, his least shitty pair of sneakers, and it’s pretty much the nicest outfit he owns unless he counts the suit he wore five years ago to his great-aunt Maude’s funeral.

“You clean up well,” Magnus says in the silence, and Alec realizes he’s been thinking silently the better part of ten minutes and he’s made things awkward again.

“Thanks. So do you, I guess,” Alec says stiltedly and immediately wants to slither out of his seat, through the footboard, and onto the street below where he can spend his days residing in sewage and humiliation.

When has Magnus ever not looked great? He probably wakes up with a perfect five o’ clock shadow, hair artfully styled, subtle eyeliner in place. He’s exciting, dangerous, makes Alec’s heart thud with excitement. He’s everything Alec isn’t and against all odds, he wants _Alec_.

If it's the last thing he does with his earthly body, Alec is so getting laid tonight.

Magnus laughs softly. “I do try.”

“Where are we going?” Alec asks, twisting around in his seat to peer out the window.

Magnus hesitates slightly, then answers, “You didn’t seem to care for the last restaurant.”

“It was fine,” Alec protests a little awkwardly. “The steak was okay. Good. Warm.” It’s a stupid description, but it’s all that comes to mind. He might as well be describing a fuzzy parka for all the passion it ignites.

“Your face turned green when they brought out the escargot.”

“They were so slippery,” Alec says vaguely. “I had to chew for so long.”

“That’s why I thought we might try something more your speed.”

More Alec’s speed is pretty basic and totally beneath Magnus. For a grim week sophomore year, he and Jace broke their microwave and made ramen packets and boiled hotdogs in an ancient electric kettle. They'd eaten the food with warm beer and crouched on the floor like _animals_.

Magnus continues, “I asked around and found a place I thought you’d like.”  The car pulls up to curb outside and Alec cranes his neck and laughs when he sees the place. It’s a diner, one that he’s eaten at a million times. He feels less self-conscious about his ratty shoes, the fact that he couldn’t get his hair to do anything except sit on his in a slightly less untidy manner than usual. He’d looked at himself in the dirty bathroom mirror and thought, _Eh. Good Enough_.

“I love this place,” Alec says, grinning at the neon sign. Night has fallen and the light sputters in the darkness, casting flickering yellow-green lights over the backseat. Magnus doesn’t answer and Alec turns in his seat to look at him, but Magnus is staring at Alec, watching him silently. “You okay?”

“What?” Magnus asks, looking startled.

“I asked if you were okay.”

“Sure,” Magnus says easily. “We’re here,” he says.

 

\---

 

Inside, it’s all warm, steamy, fog on the windows, the smell of grilling meat that's at least 27% fat. Alec just loves the bacon cheeseburgers, even though he tries to stay away from them as often as possible. The freshmen 15 was more like the freshman 25 for him as he twitched his way through his first year and a too generous, pre-paid meal plan.

To his surprise, Magnus looks totally at ease. Alec had thought he’d turn his nose up at the sticky tables, the smudged windows, but he slides into a booth easily and grabs a menu tucked in-between the napkin dispenser and the salt shaker like it’s something he does every day. And maybe it is. What does Alec know about him other than what gossipy busybodies have told him? Or what he’s read in ill-advised tabloids? After all, Alec was cast in the role of the worldly, wily seductress and his shoelace broke last year, so he fixed it with duct tape. Tabloids are wrong more often than they're right.

“So, I hear the burgers are the best thing on the menu.”

“It’s pretty much the only thing on the menu,” Alec admits. “Unless you want a chunk of iceberg lettuce with some questionable dressing. I might as well tell you now it‘s the same thing they put on the burgers and serve with the fries -- it's just Sriracha and mayo. Don't be fooled by the “special" in the special sauce. Jace makes it in our dorm room and he once ate Ramen Noodles dry because he didn't feel like getting up to microwave them.”

Magnus grins. “Your brother sounds delightful.”

“He‘s not,” Alec says.

“I ordered last time, so how about you order for both of us this time?”

“Sure,” Alec agrees, feeling unaccountably nervous. He realizes he wants Magnus to _like_ the food. Somehow, if Magnus likes Alec’s favorite shitty diner food, then he might actually like Alec’s shitty, sub-par self.

The waitress comes by and Alec orders two sodas, two double bacon cheeseburgers, and an extra large order of fries. She snaps her gun and promises to be right back.

When she’s gone, Alec drums his fingers against the table. “So, what do you do besides being, uh, royalty?”

Magnus seems amused. “Besides running into young men in the library and tracking them down to their place of employment?”

Alec feels his eyes widen. “I assumed you had some kind of secret service to do that.”

“You were wearing a name tag with the café logo on it,” Magnus points out very gently.

“Ah,” Alec says, flustered beyond reason. This conversation is spiraling out of his control. He’s riding the train two stops past horrified to some terrible place with a cliff that he hopes he can toss himself off of. “No to the Secret Service, then?”

“Not this time. But I’ve been taking some classes. I just wanted to get a feel for what it’s like to be--normal, I guess.”

Alec tries to ignore the bodyguards hovering indiscreetly a few tables over. The fact he’s never noticed them before says unflattering things about him. Namely, that Alec is almost absurdly stuck in his own head.

“Being normal sucks,” Alec points out. “Going to class, getting yelled at by parents, making overly-complicated drinks for people that don’t understand we’re not Starbucks. We can’t make Starbucks drinks. No, we don’t have a public bathroom, and yes, we do charge extra for sprinkles.”

“How heartless,” Magnus murmurs.

“It’s the rules!”

Magnus reaches across the sticky Formica and gently touches Alec’s hand. “I was just kidding.”

“I knew that,” Alec lies. “It’s just--you don’t know what it’s like to be totally average in an average life.”

“Trust me,” Magnus says, gaze warm, “you’re anything but average.”

 

\---

 

Their food comes and Magnus looks startled at the sheer size of the sandwich. Alec has never given serious thought to it, mostly just sort of shoves his face into it. "Not what you're used to, huh? You only get one fork here and you're pretty lucky if it's clean."

"Don't apologize," Magnus says. "It looks wonderful." He picks up the burger and turns it sideways, then over again, looking puzzled. 

"You just kind of have to shove it in your mouth," Alec says, then flushes, but because he can't stop an excruciating double entendre once he starts, he continues, "it's a bit of a learned skill."

Magnus shrugs. “No time like the present, right?” And Alec watches, transfixed as he takes a huge, messy bite. There’s a smear of mayonnaise on his chin and Alec laughs, leans across the table and swipes it off with his thumb. Without thinking, he pops it into his own mouth.

Magnus pauses, sandwich halfway to his lips.

“What?” Alec asks.

“Nothing,” Magnus says and looks down at the burger in his hands, bits of bacon and tomato and globs of pink-tinged secret sauce sliding out and hitting the plate like fat raindrops against the pavement during a heavy summer downpour. “It’s just really good.”

After they finish eating, belly full and warm, Alec listens to Magnus tell a wild story about sailing on the Amalfi Coast with an entire posse of Eurotrash with bewildering names barely made respectable by the types of titles that only matter to Americans and Europeans over the age of 65.

It sounds wild and fun and impossibly out of Alec’s realm of understanding because he is broke, he is young, and perpetually late for important stuff. Because he lives small while Magnus lives large.

Still, it’s entertaining. “Sounds like a good time,” Alec says and goes to take another drink before realizing it’s empty. He looks around and notices the diner has cleared out except for the two surly bodyguards in crumpled suits two tables over. “Guess we should go,” he says a little regretfully.

He could stay here and talk to Magnus all night, apparently has already done so, but Alec has bigger plans for the evening.

His nerves are a little frayed just thinking about them, but when are they not?

“We could pick this up at your place,“ Alec suggests, aiming for suave, missing by a mile, and ends up choking a little on his own spit.

Not missing a beat, Magnus says, voice warm, “I’d like that.” He gestures to his guards. 

God, he’s so smooth it sets Alec’s teeth on edge just to think about it, so he doesn’t. He just lets himself go with the flow, even though the mere thought of not being in control makes him want to wet himself a little.

The problem, the whole goddamn dilemma of Alec's existence, is the more he tries to pull the threads of his life together, the more things seem to careen out of his control. He stays up late studying for a test and just generally being a nuisance to himself and then ends up sleeping through the three alarms he set.

Basically, he’s absolutely done with himself and just wants to get laid already. He wants to see what it would be like to live free, unencumbered. He wants to live large, too.

Alec stands up and holds a hand out to Magnus. "I'm ready if you are," he says. 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof. i know most people update fics like once a week but it's unusual for me. usually, this fic would be done by now. but i've been busy! tweeting! this is deeply unedited but i have to post it now or i'll never get around to it. SORRY.

 

 

 

 

Magnus lives in the student apartments, which is a touch nicer than the dorms and only available to upperclassmen. Alec had thought about applying last year, but then that would have left Jace to the general housing pool and he doubted anyone else could put up with Jace for more than a month.

The guards stay outside the door, obviously well-trained, but Alec tries not to let that sour the evening.

“Nice place,” Alec says. It’s a lie. Everything on the student campus is pretty grim down to the threadbare carpets stretched over cement floors, but the dorm communal bathroom Alec uses has actual bars on the windows, so it’s not like he’s in any place to judge someone else’s living conditions.

“No, it’s not,” Magnus says easily, “but I wanted the authentic American student experience.”

Alec eyes a mysterious brown stain on the carpet and says, “This authentic enough for you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Magnus says, head cocked thoughtfully. He lets his eyes travel up the length of Alec’s body. “It’s looking up now.”

“Well, uh, that’s great,” Alec says. He looks around desperately for something to talk about, but the apartment really is only a grimy box with a kitchenette shoved in the corner and two tiny bedrooms. For city student housing, it’s downright luxurious. Still, it doesn’t leave Alec with much to say that isn’t vaguely insulting.

Alec's looking away when Magnus moves forward, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck, and kisses Alec. Magnus’ lips are and dry and soft, his tongue hesitantly licking into Alec’s mouth. It’s nothing at all like Alec thought it would be: it’s soft and a little tender, and Alec lets himself sink into the warmth of Magnus’ body pressed close against his, eyes sliding shut, memorizing the taste of him. They make out for a little, lazy and unhurried until Magnus pulls back and Alec’s eyes flutter open, a little dazed.

It hadn’t occurred to Alec to be worried that Magnus might be a lousy kisser until now, standing in the man’s apartment, wondering if he’s really going to do this. Probably. Definitely.

Since he met him, Magnus has occupied so much of his thoughts, Alec has to keep reminding himself he hasn’t known him forever. Somehow, Magnus has neatly managed to slot himself in Alec’s head somewhere between the constant fear of failure and crushing disappointment in himself.

In a definite cart before the horse situation, Alec has zipped straight past both and found himself somewhere new and so foreign, he barely speaks the language.

“My bedroom’s that way,” Magnus says, voice husky and rolling his head towards one of the back bedrooms.

Alec should just go along with it, it's a perfect invitation. But because his brain is on a near-constant torpedo path to humiliation, he opens his mouth and blurts out, “For sex?”

Magnus throws his head back and laughs, shoulders shaking. It’s a full, throaty sound, and makes Alec tingle down to his bones. He makes Magnus laugh like this; true, it’s at least a little at Alec‘s expense, but it still feels significant.

“You’re very funny,” Magnus says.

No one, to Alec’s limited knowledge, has ever thought that before. Generally, people don't think about him much at all. He occasionally exhausts his friends and family, but everyone knows they can depend on him. He’s the human equivalent of a Chrysler: he’s no one’s first choice, but he’ll get the job done in a pinch.

“Yes, for sex if you'd like to,” Magnus says, still chuckling. "Or we could stay out here and spend some time together."

Alec licks his suddenly parched lips. “Yes, the first choice. That. Yes."

  
\---

 

There’s nothing to trip over, but somehow Alec manages to. He catches himself on the edge of a dresser, palm stinging. Bare walls, functional bedding. There’s not much to suggest anyone even lives here other than some baffling eye makeup scattered across the dresser and a few shirts slung over the back of a chair. Alec swallows painfully. It’s not wise to think of this as being anything more than it is. Magnus is here for a year, tops, then he’s going back to his glamorous life of being absurdly wealthy and eating fancy food with doll-sized cutlery.

Alec unbuttons his shirt and lets it hang open. It’s a cool night, but he feels overheated and anxious. Suddenly, it seems very quiet, the traffic outside, the soft click of a ceiling fan, the sound of his own breaths coming fast and nervous.

Alec goes to takes off his pants, but Magnus stops him with a hand gently tugging his hands away from the top button of Alec's overly-complicated jeans. A button and a zipper, Jesus. Magnus murmurs, “Let me,” unzipping Alec’s jeans before pushing them down over his hips. Alec stumbles out of them, kicking off his shoes into the darkness where they thud against the far wall, then pulls his pants and shirt off. He looks ridiculous, but he doesn’t care because Magnus is standing less than a foot away, carefully undressing, and Alec doesn’t know exactly what he thought Magnus was hiding under his clothes, but nothing prepares him for what he sees: miles of smooth golden skin, toned body, the sharp jut of his collarbones.

Alec kisses him, hungry and a little sharp, overcome with sheer want.

It’s been a while since he’s done anything like this. Those other times amounted to little more than hurried, silly fumblings because Alec was drunk and lonely and desperate to feel the touch of another boy, but they don't compare. They're not even in the same ballpark, the same neighborhood. They were the park built over a Staten Island landfill and Magnus is Central Park at sunset.

He pulls Magnus close, fingers sinking into the waistband of his pants, and walks him backward until Magnus' legs hit the bed, and he falls back on it, sprawled out. A hot jolt of desire shoots through Alec, a need to have Magnus inside him so fierce he almost shakes with it.

Alec wonders if sex comes naturally to everyone, or if it’s just something about Magnus, that Alec's hands instinctually guide themselves to his stomach, to the soft skin there, his lips to Magnus’ neck. Magnus tilts his head back as Alec kisses from his neck to his chest, teeth scraping gently over tendons and muscle.

Magnus runs his hand up and down Alec's back, his cock a hard, hot pressure against his thigh.

"Fuck me," Alec says against Magnus' belly, voice scraped raw and desperate.

For the moment, he's grateful for the quiet because he can hear Magnus' sharp intake of breath.

Beneath him, Magnus rolls over, reaching into his bedside drawer, pulling out lube and a condom from an absurdly large box. Who buys value packs of condoms? Alec's stomach swoops unpleasantly and he forcefully pushes the thoughts away. It doesn't matter, he's here with Magnus now.

Alec gives him some room, and lies back on the bed, waiting, until Magnus scoots between his knees, pushing them apart with his hips.

When Magnus’s finger slips into him, Alec starts, takes a deep breath and tries to relax into it, to concentrate on the wet slide of his finger, knuckle slightly crooked and catching on his rim. “C’mon,” Alec begs, as Magnus leans down and draws one of Alec's nipples into his mouth, worrying at the tender skin there and sucking gently as he adds another finger until they're sliding easily in and out of Alec’s body. He adds another and switches to the other nipple, leaving Alec's skin tight and puckered and overly sensitive, shiny with saliva.

Alec watches the overhead fan as Magnus moves his fingers carefully, blades whirling by, circling in and out of sight, a low, steady thrum of pleasure building under his skin.

“Do it, please,” Alec pleads. “I'm ready, just fuck me already.”

Magnus pulls his fingers out and presses a kiss into Alec's shoulder. "As you wish," he says.

He hears the crinkle of foil as Magnus slips a condom on before he feels the blunt end of Magnus’ cock against his entrance, then there’s nothing at all but the sweet stretch Magnus sliding in, slow and burning, the feel of Magnus' hand digging into the base of his spine, pulling Alec's hips up, the damp hot breath against his neck where Magnus is gasping Alec’s name.

“Oh, fuck. Fuck me, more, more,” Alec mumbles over and over nonsensically, unsure what he’s asking for. This is better than everything else he’s ever done and far worse, this slow torture of Magnus filling him up, slowly fucking him open and loose as the shitty campus mattress creaks beneath them.

As Magnus moves faster, rocking forward, Alec doesn’t even care what he’s saying as he begs Magnus to fuck him hard, and yes, just like that, as he lies there and takes it, hands clutching at the sheets as he feebly tries to push himself further onto Magnus’ cock.

He feels it take hold of him, a fire starting low in his belly, building up like a rubber band pulled too tight, further and further until it snaps completely, and Alec’s coming, striping his own stomach with a shudder.

Magnus keeps going, fucking into Alec's body with abandon, breathing hard, the hair at the nape of his neck damp as Alec runs a hand tenderly through it. Alec feels split-open, flying high, and so fond of Magnus, it doesn't bear thinking about.

It’s unbelievable, this feeling of teetering on the razor-thin edge of pleasure and pain, but Alec wants Magnus so badly, he spreads his knees further, lets Magnus pound away until Magnus gasps, thrusts deep and groans, Alec’s blunt fingernails scraping down his sweaty back.

 

\---

 

A couple hours later, Magnus wakes him up, pressing kisses over his cheeks and nose.

“I don’t know if I can again,” Alec protests, still drowsy and half-asleep. His ass feels kind of awful, sore and still unpleasantly damp.

Magnus hums happily. “Not to worry. Have you ever had a blowjob before?”

“Sure," Alec says, "but it was terrible. We were both drunk and it was all tooth-y and scrape-y.”

Magnus winces. “Those aren’t words you generally want to be associated with your dick.”

“Trust me, I think it felt worse,” Alec informs him. At least what Alec can remember of it -- the memories are blessedly hazy at best -- but he doesn’t offer any more details.

“Just lie back and relax,” Magnus says, patting Alec’s arm.

“The last time someone told me that was at the dentist,” Alec says because he really knows how to kill a mood.

“Hopefully this time will be better?” Magnus offers, scooting himself down Alec’s body, dragging the sheets down with him. Alec shivers in the cool air. Magnus grips Alec’s knee, white-knuckled, and breath ghosting over his cock, Alec shuddering as Magnus fits his mouth over him, enveloping his cock in wet heat.

Magnus' tongue moves over the tip of his cock, then down the underside, one hand curled around the base of Alec's cock, other hand on his hip, holding Alec down on the bed. And thank god he is, because Alec is about to crawl out of his skin as Magnus blows him, reaching down to cup Alec’s balls and roll them gently in his hand, mouth screwing wetly down on his dick.

Alec lasts as long as it takes him to look down. It’s too much, the sight of Magnus, head bobbing up and down on his dick, the tight heat of his mouth, the firm, nearly-possessive pressure against his hip, and then he’s coming, biting his lip hard, legs trembling, eyes shut tight.

Magnus pulls back, presses a kiss to his belly and Alec thinks distantly, no condom, he must have swallowed. Something about Magnus just brings out all the best decisions in Alec.

Alec lies on the bed, limp and totally fucked out, while Magnus wanders out to the bathroom. He hears the toilet flush, water running, and then the bedroom door opens and Magnus slides back into bed with him.

Alec collects his thoughts for a moment, then realizes -- “I can, I probably should reciprocate?” Alec offers, brain mercifully quiet for once. He wants to try, even though it's bound to be terrible. He didn't say it, but the teeth and awfulness of the last blowjob were his teeth, his awfulness. Being born gay doesn’t mean you’re born with a dick in your mouth. It takes practice and Alec has had shamefully few opportunities to learn.

Magnus squeezes Alec's hand and yawns. “In the morning,” he promises with a sleepy grin. “Get some rest.”

No lie, Alec's a little disappointed, but he doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s fucking _exhausted_. Listening to Magnus breathe beside him, the warmth of the body next to his, the weight of Magnus' head against his chest, lulls Alec to sleep in no time at all.

  
\---

 

Alec wakes up right at dawn when the first morning rays are nothing but a slice of pink and yellow across the sky. In his sleep, Magnus has pulled away, curled in on himself, one arm tucked up underneath his cheek.

He looks troubled, brow furrowed.

Alec stretches, careful not to wake Magnus; he feels loose, well-fucked, relaxed in the few moments before the reality of his life comes crashing back down on him.

He needs to be studying for finals. He has a full spread of classes, a shift later at the coffee shop, and then, and then. His life is mapped out, the next ten years spoken for and the weight of it is crushing when he stops to think about it. So, Alec doesn’t. Instead, he plans for the next two hours, breaks his life into manageable pieces, so he doesn't have to face the whole of it.

Alec looks back over at Magnus.

It was a perfect night, one that Alec wants to keep untarnished by regret and early-morning awkwardness.

Alec slips out of bed, tiptoeing through the room to collect discarded clothing. He pulls on his pants and shirt, trying not to grimace at his protesting muscles.

His hand hovers over Magnus' soft hair, almost touching, then pulls back at the last moment. He can’t shake the feeling it’s kind of a dick move, leaving without even letting Magnus know he’s going, but Alec figures Magnus will be relieved not to have to make up some excuse to get rid of him once he wakes up.

It’s better this way, Alec tells himself.

On his way to the front door, he passes a bodyguard sitting on a threadbare sofa, flipping through a newspaper. The guard looks familiar, but Alec can't tell which one it is. They all look kind of universally disgusted with Alec. The guard looks up at Alec and shakes his head slightly. Alec suppresses the urge to flip him off. He’s not going to be judged by some random asshole; he judges himself harshly enough already.

Alec is doing the right thing for everyone involved.

The front door shuts with a final-sounding click behind him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, this is going to be 7 or 8 parts because i fail at planning.

 

 

The first thing Alec sees when he tries to sneak back into his dorm is Jace grinning at him, lounging across both beds, pushed together. “Someone’s doing the walk of shame.”

“No shame,” Alec protests, determinedly ignoring the bed situation for now. “There is absolutely no shame at all involved.”

There is, Alec thinks, at least a _little_ shame.

“Don’t you have class?” Alec asks him.

“Don’t you?” Jace retorts because he's _five_. He’s also eating gummy worms for breakfast.

Jace once tried to convince Alec that beer counted as the grain portion of the food pyramid right before complaining of dizziness, nausea, and intermittent tooth pain. Which led to Alec spending the next few hours furiously looking up the symptoms of scurvy. He’s been through a lot with Jace: an appendix scare when Jace was ten, a broken arm when Jace was fourteen. Alec remembers sitting by Jace's bedside in the E.R, with Jace white-faced and holding his arm to his chest, while Alec gripped his shoulder and frantically told him everything was going to be alright.

Alec looks down at his phone and curses. He woke up early, but in typical fashion has squandered the head start, walking around the sprawling campus and wondering if he’s done the right thing. It made sense to leave Magnus, but it felt all wrong. The thing about adulthood is, sometimes there are no clear-cut answers. Sometimes there’s just you, stumbling around in the dark, trying to find where you flung your underwear the night before. Being an adult is a real thrill.

Now, Alec feels unhappy, already exhausted by everything he doesn’t know how to fix in his life. His stomach growls.

“Worked up an appetite, huh?” Jace asks suggestively.

“Fuck you,” Alec snaps, but Jace is already crossing the room with Alec’s backpack, handing it to him and pressing a PowerBar into his hand.

“You know these things aren’t real food, right?” Alec asks, holding the PowerBar up anxiously, which purports to be peanut butter flavored. If Jace is living on refined sugar and prepackaged food again, Alec is going to have to worry about scurvy for the second time. Sometimes he wraps a multivitamin up in cheese and gives it to Jace, just like he used to do for their dog when they were kids. Why Jace thinks Alec hands him random hunks of cheese, Alec never can figure out.

“This is stimulating conversation and all,” Jace says as he’s spinning Alec around towards the door and pushing him through, “but you really will be late for class if you don’t hurry.”

"Because you’re so worried about my grades?” Alec says, looking over his shoulder.

Jace’s face, nearly always gently mocking, is serious as he says, “Nah, man. I don’t give a shit about your grades, but it’ll just be one more thing you’ll hate about yourself later.”

Alec doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he goes.

  
\---

 

Hefting his backpack on his shoulder, he makes his way to the library after class. He’d like to check out some more journals for his paper on Diverticulitis and its clinical complications. Shockingly, it’s not something he’s looking forward to.

Behind him, someone yells, “Hey, asshole!”

Alec grins slightly. Sounds like someone’s in trouble. He continues towards the library.

“Hey, you! Asshole!”

Alec’s steps slow. “Yeah, I’m talking to you,” the voice yells and Alec realizes in slow-dawning horror that the voice is familiar.

Alec turns to see Magnus storming after him. Magnus looks righteously angry, shockingly undone, hair soft, sharp jaw stubbled. Alec stands rooted to the spot, watching Magnus approach.

“You have really long legs,” Magnus huffs as soon as they’re face to face. Alec tries to ignore the prickly feeling of eyes staring all around them. He's sure some tabloid will cover this tomorrow, a trashy headline declaring, _Trouble In Paradise??? Boy Toy and Heir Have Public Lover's Spat._

Alec looks down. They look like normal legs to him. “Did you find me to yell at me because of my legs?”

“No,” Magus says, looking offended. “Obviously not.”

It’s not obvious to Alec. If it were, he wouldn’t have asked.

“Maybe,” Magnus continues, “I’m a little pissed off because I woke up in bed alone. You think can you ditch me like some kind of drunk sorority girl? That doesn’t happen to me.”

“That’s not fair--” Alec interjects, then trails off. He takes a moment to review his recent behavior: meet a cute guy, go on a few dates, fuck and then run off in the morning with no explanation. It’s an awful, terrible thing he’s done and what justification did he have for it? Magnus is rich and good-looking? So are a lot of people, and Alec doesn‘t go around treating them like trash. “I might be a little bit of an asshole,” he concludes.

Magnus seems to deflate. “Well, as long as we’re in agreement.” He sits down on a bench nestled between two shrubs along a gravel path winding behind the back of the hulking library. It’s an ideal spot to crouch down and cry while writing a thesis. Alec should know; he’s done it a few times.

“We are,” Alec says, sighing and sitting down next to Magnus. “I’m not great at apologies -- Izzy says angry apologies aren’t a thing -- but I guess I owe you one.”

“S’okay,” Magnus says. His shirt’s only half fastened, the buttons misaligned like he got dressed in a hurry. If at all possible, Alec feels even worse, staring at the uneven edges of Magnus’ shirt.

“It’s really not,” Alec says, scrubbing a hand through his hair tiredly.

He figured someone like Magnus couldn’t possibly want him for more than a good time. Alec is--too dull, too whatever.

As it turns out, if you say something enough times to yourself, if someone tells you that you’re worthless, if you say it to yourself, you begin to believe it.

“It’s not like I haven’t done it to other people before,“ Magnus allows.

“Really?” Alec says, though he’s not surprised. He read the tabloids, he saw the contents of Magnus’ nightstand. Tabloids are often wrong, but where there’s smoke, there’s usually a fire.

“Yeah, that was before I found out how awful it feels,“ Magus says. “Do you think the people I left felt the same way -- cheap and kind of horrible?”

“I’m sure they did,” Alec says, staring at Magnus, flummoxed.

“Oh,” Magnus says and has the grace to look abashed. He continues in a hesitant voice, “But why did you leave. I thought--I liked you, you know. You don’t play games like most people.”

Alec has thought about it an entirely unreasonable amount. He likes Magnus, likes his outgoing, easy manner, likes the way Magnus listens quietly, attention focused entirely on Alec like no one else exists except the two of them when they‘re together. He likes the way Magnus overdresses for every occasion, gets excited by good food, talks about the characters in movies like they’re his personal friends. It‘s not a great love for the ages, not yet, but it‘s a start.

The reasons Alec had for doubting his sincere interest are truly embarrassing, and the thought of telling Magnus makes him want to die a little on the inside, but there are some moments that if you’re not honest about what you want, you’ll lose the opportunity forever. And he’s not sure he’s ready to let go of Magnus quite yet.

“I didn’t think someone like you could really like someone like me,” Alec confesses in a rush.

Magnus scoffs, “What -- tall, devastatingly smart, beautiful--”

Alec licks his lips. “You think I’m beautifu--”

“Stop fishing for compliments,” Magnus cuts him off. “And stop trying to change the subject.”

The horrible PowerBar Alec ate this morning sits like a leaden weight in his belly. It probably won’t ever break down correctly. He’ll be buried with it still in his system and excavated in a thousand years with an undigested mess of protein and anxiety in his gut. They’ll christen him “Homo Disquietus” and school children will come to view his bones as a cautionary tale against sleeping around.

He looks over at Magnus, at his mussed hair and wrinkled shirt.

Though Alec doesn’t often go with his gut feelings, doesn’t believe they’re any more than sublimated desires and occasional indigestion, he has a feeling he’s missing the larger picture.

“Magnus, do you still have feelings for me?

Magnus looks at him carefully. “I have many feelings about you, not all of them entirely pleasant right now.”

His face is impassive, lips pressed tightly together, but the tips of his ears are bright red.

“Oh,” Alec says in a quiet, understanding exhale.

Alec had wanted one perfect, carefree night, but he’s realized such a thing doesn’t exist. Sex doesn’t come without strings, and even if you know better than to have feelings for someone, life often has other plans. All the major turning points in Alec’s life have happened between moments of careful planning, like fragile flowers pushing up through cracks in the pavement, unexpected and lovely. 

“Because I like you,” Alec says, dredging up all the tattered remains of his confidence. “Like, a lot.”

No reward without risk, Alec tells himself. And it is a risk. Magnus might break his heart, but it’s a chance he’s willing to take.

Magnus blinks, looking surprised, lips parted.

Alec wonders if anyone’s ever genuinely liked him before.

“So, do you think we can start over?” Alec thrusts out a hand. “I’m Alec Lightwood, pre-med student, grouchy barista, and kind of a jerk.”

The corner of Magnus' mouth tugs up slightly as he takes Alec‘s hand and shakes it. “Magnus Bane. If you want to go get some books, I’d be glad to knock them out of your arms again. Go on, I‘ll wait patiently here.” He gestures lazily at the library, all confident charm again.

But Alec knows better now.

Alec laughs. “We can skip that part if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, well, if you insist.”

Alec coughs. “So, uh, we’re doing this? For real this time?”

“You romantic,” Magnus says dryly, but his eyes are bright and soft as they study Alec carefully. “Yeah, I guess we’re doing this.”

They're staring dopily at each other right out in the open, but Alec doesn't care.

With a jolt, Alec remembers that he still has to get some research articles from the library if he wants to finish his case study tonight. He looks around, noting their surroundings. About twenty feet away, Magnus’ massive bodyguard looks like a wolf among sheep, students giving him a wide, nervous berth. His gaze snags on Alec and he narrows his eyes.

“This is super touching and all,“ Alec says. “But can we get out of here? This bench is literally _covered_ in bird shit. We’ll both probably get bird flu, be shunned by our families, have to live in a leper colony in Taiwan.”

“Sounds like an adventure,” Magnus says.

"A _leper colony_ ," Alec hisses. 

"Aren't you an odd duck?" Magnus says happily.

“Yeah,” Alec says, taking Magnus’ hand to pull him to his feet. “I’m odd and tightly-wound, I know. They’ll put it on my tombstone. You’ll eventually learn to love it.”

“I’m sure I will,” Magnus says, looking at him with an expression Alec can’t interpret.

  
\---

   
They don’t start again, exactly, such a thing isn’t possible as much as Alec wishes it were. But they do manage to pick up somewhere around where they left off, sans disastrous morning after.

Magnus takes Alec to a tiny restaurant, expensive but not extravagant, and for the next date, Alec buys Magnus hotdogs topped with everything from a dodgy-looking cart while they walk around Central Park at night, waiting to get mugged or propositioned.

Two more dates in and Alec decides to stay over at Magnus’ place because he never, ever learns from his mistakes.

They undress slowly, taking their time. The first time was awkward, full of excitement and possibility. This time, they’re holding their breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. His heart pounds in his throat as he follows Magnus down to the bed. He rolls over, accidentally elbowing Magnus in the chest. “Sorry, shit!” Alec apologizes while Magnus wheezes.

“It’s fine,” Magnus gasps out.

Alec sits up. “What are we doing? Why is this so awkward.”

“Let go of expectations,” Magnus says, rubbing his chest. “Just--enjoy yourself.”

The last time Alec tried that, he fucked up on a seismic scale, the reverberations still shaking through their relationship, knocking them over each time they seem to get their footing.

"I don't know if I can," Alec says.

Magnus touches his face, thumb sliding across the edge of Alec's lips. "It's just us. Relax."

Staring at Magnus, Alec feels himself unwinding, uncoiling, melting into the heat of Magnus' body, his sure strength.

Alec does eventually try giving a blowjob. As expected, he’s pretty terrible at it, but it’s not like he can apologize with his mouth full of dick.

Anyway, Magnus seems to enjoy it, judging by the way his thighs tremble beneath the flat of Alec's palms, his fingers running through Alec’s hair and pulling tight.

Afterwards, they fall asleep in a messy tangle of limbs, Alec's hand on Magnus' chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breaths.

In the morning, Alec wakes up early again to greet the sun.

He stumbles into the kitchen, past a prudish bodyguard, to peer into the refriderator, which is depressingly empty.

Alec heads back to the bedroom, quietly scoops his t-shirt off the floor and pulls it on. He pats his jeans, feeling for his wallet, then heads down to the nearest coffeeshop, buys cream cheese, bagels, two travel cups of dark roast coffee.

When he gets back, he makes a beeline for the bedroom, intending to surprise Magnus.

Magnus is sitting up in bed, sheets pooled around his hips, lips white. He looks lost and young, and Alec has another pang of regret that they started out they way they did. Nothing in life is free.

But while he can’t go back and re-write their history, he can help shape their future into something far kinder. “Bagels, New York style.” He holds up the crinkled paper bag. “Wanted to surprise you with breakfast.”

“Of course,” Magnus says as he slides out of bed, pulling his discarded pair of slacks on and staring at the floor.

Alec sets the food down on the dresser.

“On second thought,” Alec says, “we should probably sleep in this morning.”

Magnus finally looks up. “Yeah?”

“Let’s go back to bed,” Alec says. “The food can wait.”

The bagels are going to be awful in an hour, inedibly tough and chewy, the cream cheese warm, the coffee cold. But it doesn’t matter.

There are more important things.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i'm pretty garbage at responding to comments right now, but i read all of them! all my time has been taken up by twitter to try to get the show picked up. i will respond to each and every lovely comment as soon as i can. :(

 

 

  
They’ve been dating for a few weeks when Alec starts complaining again about Jace listening to music too loudly for Alec to study in their room. Jace wasn't satisfied with the volume until he could “hear it in his teeth,” he once explained, to which Alec had kindly offered to knock them all out so Jace wouldn't have that problem anymore.

“And then I go to the library and the librarian, Ms. Peterson, spends the whole time hovering behind me like I’m going to start shoving books down my pants to steal them at any moment.”

“Lucky books,“ Magnus says from where he’s lazing on the bed, painting his nails a deep emerald green to match his shirt. He sits up. “Wait, she stands behind you the _whole time_?”

Alec is stretched out next to him, hand behind his head, staring down at his green toenails Magnus painted earlier. He'd die before admitting it, and he's going to have to wear gym socks to the dorm shower, but he kind of likes the way it looks. His feet look cheerful. “Well,” Alec says slowly, thinking out loud, “she kind of loops the library, but she always stops to glare at me for a full 30 seconds when she passes.”

“Alec, it sounds like she likes you.” Magnus blows on his nails carefully.

“I have like, $400 worth of late fees. I’ve never returned anything on time. The cutoff supposed to be $20 before you can’t check out anything else, but I guess she’s given up on me.”

Magnus just looks at him pityingly.

Alec flushes and sits up. “Magnus, she’s like, 80.” Though it hasn’t occurred to him before now, it does bring a lot of her stranger behavior into startlingly clear perspective. He wonders if she calls all the library patrons at home after 8 pm on Saturday nights.

“Love is love,” Magnus says, grinning down at the bedspread, the sides of his eyes crinkled appealingly. Alec watches him for a moment, chest tight, and breathes slowly until the feeling passes and he can speak again.

"Alec?" Magnus asks, looking up at him, eyebrows raised. 

“Just thinking about how hilarious you are,” Alec says, wrapping his arms around Magnus and pulling him backward.

“Stop,” Magnus squawks. “You’re going to ruin my nail polish!”

“Oh no,” Alec says, in between kisses and lowering Magnus down to the bed, “you should have thought about that before you started playing geriatric matchmaker.”

  
\---

  
Later, Alec’s at the desk Magnus bought last week, studying for his exam. It’s gleaming wood, expensive like Magnus and shoved into the corner, incongruously fancy next to the other battered standard student fare. It’s the only thing in the entire apartment that looks like Magnus, all inlaid gold and ornate etching. It looks like the type of desk Louis XIV might have looked at and decided was a bit too gaudy.

When Alec asked about it, Magnus had casually said, “I just needed somewhere to do homework.”

“You’ve never done homework,” Alec pointed out.

“Well, now I can,” Magnus said, entirely too reasonably. Alec tries not to read too much into it. Buying one lousy piece of furniture doesn’t mean Magnus is making plans to stay, but buying something so obviously for Alec seems significant.

Now, Alec is sitting at the desk that Magnus hasn‘t used for anything other than a convenient place to throw his shirts, eyes swimming with exhaustion and nodding off while trying to focus on an increasingly boring textbook. The highlighter drops from his fingers and hits the floor, rolling somewhere out of sight. Magnus comes up behind him, placing his hand on Alec's shoulders and massaging gently. “Come to bed, darling.”

“I’ve still got one more chapter to get through,” Alec mumbles, leaning back into the warm touch. “I’m reading about Pica.”

“I‘m sure I'd be fascinated if I had any idea what that was,” Magnus says, “but you know the saying, you’re falling asleep on your feet like a horse taking a shit.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alec says, twisting around to blink sleepy, accusing eyes at Magnus. Against his will, he snickers a little because it's always a little surprising and funny when Magnus is crass. Though Alec would like to think of himself as an enlightened male, educated and mature, he still laughs at fart jokes. He's only human. Alec sways a little in his chair. “No one says that.”

“I did, just now,” Magnus points out, hauling Alec up. "Still, made you laugh, didn't it?"

It did. Alec always forgets behind the elegant mannerisms, the overwhelming privilege and sometimes equally overwhelming arrogance to match, Magnus is a young twentysomething just like him.

Magnus ignores Alec’s mumbled protests. “Your depressing homework will be there in the morning. You can wake up dreadfully early again and finish the chapter before class.”

Alec sighs. “Yeah, okay.” He can’t argue when Magnus gets like this -- all calm and rational. It’s unfair how someone who has expressed doubts about the moon landing and secretly believes in chemtrails can always be so persuasive. If the royalty thing doesn’t work out for him, Magnus could probably make a pretty decent living as a cult leader.

Magnus helps Alec strip down to his underwear, warm hand lingering on his hip suggestively. “Sorry,” Alec says, apologetic and covering his mouth as he yawns wide. “In the morning?”

“Your morning is getting pretty busy.”

“I’ll wake up extra hideously early,” Alec promises. He grabs his phone, sets the alarm and shoots off a quick text to let Jace know he won’t be back to the dorm tonight, if Jace couldn’t already tell. If he doesn't, Jace might do something embarrassing like show up at the apartment and demand to know if Alec's being held against his will. Since Alec's first disastrous sexual encounter that left him stumbling back to his dorm room, upset and near tears, Jace has been fiercely protective.

Alec gets into bed, waiting for Magnus to join him.

Magnus sits next to him, hesitating like he does when he’s about to say something important and wants to make sure he gets the words right. “You know you’re always welcome to stay here. We don’t have to do anything.”

“What, study?”

“Sex,” Magnus says a touch impatiently. “I’m talking about sex, Alec.”

“Oh,” Alec says with a shrug. “Yeah, I know.”

Magnus lets out a slow breath. “Yeah, okay. Just didn’t want you to worry about anything,”

“I worry about everything all the time,” Alec says honestly. “But that’s one thing that's never concerned me.”

“Good,” Magnus says and goes to turn out the lamp, but Alec grabs his hand at the last minute. Magnus looks over at him expectantly.

Alec considers the handsome planes of his face, his dark eyes, and feels something in himself swim into focus like the strains of a beloved, familiar song that he'd somehow forgotten.

“Do you ever think about the future?“ he asks. "What you mean to do with your life?" Yes, Alec worries, too much and all the time, but more than anything else, he worries about Magnus. Because whatever this is between them is unexpectedly large. He remembers seeing the ocean for the first time as a child, staring at the dark water, being awed and a little afraid.

Izzy had stepped up behind him. “The only way to get over fear is to dive in," she'd said. She always was braver than him.

Izzy was right then and she’s right now. But sometimes fear is present for a reason. It’s there to tell you when you’re in over your head, when the odds are stacked too far against you. And the tight feeling in his chest, the anxiety, tells him he might be in over his head now.

“No,” Alec says. “I mean, not about us. I get it, it’s too early for that. But the future in general."

“Alec,” Magnus says on a soft exhale. “C’mon, we’re young. We have a lifetime to try to figure these things out, if we ever do. Some questions don’t have answers, just more questions.”

Alec shakes his head ruefully. He doesn‘t see how Magnus can live so comfortably in the unknown. “We’re so different.”

“That’s part of the beauty of it.” Magnus pulls his hand away and cups Alec‘s cheek. “You think about the future too much.”

“Maybe,” Alec agrees. “I guess that’s my fatal flaw. Don’t all protagonists have to have one?” He's never felt like the main character in life until now.

Magnus leans forward and kisses him tenderly. “When are you going to believe that there’s nothing wrong with you?”

 

\---

 

“No, but really? Never?” Alec asks in the dark, shifting uncomfortably, unable to get settled.

“Oh for god’s sake,” Magnus sighs. “You can’t let this go?”

“Ah, sorry,” Alec says. He really can’t. He’d have more friends if he could let things slide, forgive and move on easily. But the downside of that is, he’d have more friends. “I just can’t see how you could have no idea where you’ll be in five years.”

“Because I don’t have a choice in my life, and I never did. My entire life has always been mapped out. This university, you -- you’re the first thing I’ve ever done for myself.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not the first thing you’ve done,” Alec says dryly.

Magnus rolls over, propped up on one elbow to look down at Alec. Alec can’t see him well in the darkness, just the vague suggestion of him outlined by the moonlight shining through the sheer curtains. “Is that what you think you are? One more person in a long line?”

“I don’t see how I could be anything else.”

Alec can’t tell, but Magnus seems disappointed. “Then you don't know me or yourself very well," he says, sounding sad and tired.

Magnus is trapped by his future, expectations, so he can’t deal with more than what’s right in front of him. It's a familiar theme in Alec's life. They’d seemed so dissimilar at the onset, but as it turns out, they’re not very different at all.

"Hey," Alec says softly, "I'm getting there. Until then, you've got tons of people in your corner."

“You don’t know what it’s like to be alone,” Magnus says.

“What?" Alec says disbelievingly. "You’re an actual prince, you’ve got family and an entire country that adores you. Sure, the country might be guilty of being a tax shelter for criminals, a gambling haven, and mostly full of degenerates, but those degenerates love you.”

Alec may have taken an afternoon to read up on Edom and internally screamed at every new seedy fact he uncovered.

Magnus smiles, but it’s too tight around the edges to be entirely genuine. “Yeah, I guess they do,” he says.

 

\---

  
The next morning, after eating breakfast with Magnus and going back to his dorm, Alec is lying in bed and drinking Gatorade from a straw because he’s too lazy to sit up and drink. He’s busy thinking about the stack of case studies he has to turn in next week, the weird way Magnus said he has no clue what it’s like to be alone, topped off with a light buzz of anxiety about the general thickness of the ozone layer.

“Stop daydreaming so much about your boyfriend,“ Jace calls out from the other bed where he’s hunched over a textbook, blond hair falling into his eyes. Every few minutes, he brushes it back, just to have it begin its perilous journey back down again. Alec has considered cutting the front of his hair off while he slept, but Jace, intermittently careless and consumed by bouts of extreme vanity, would never forgive Alec. Jace's freshman year, Alec had to remove the full-length mirror from their room when he became concerned about all the time Jace spent in front of it flexing his muscles.

“I’m not,” Alec protests half-heartedly, mind skidding to a halt as he processes Jace's words.

He probably has a boyfriend, Alec realizes. He doesn’t know what super fancy people call their significant others, probably something stuffy and embarrassing, but Magnus is undoubtedly, terrifyingly significant.

 

\---

 

Monday, he’s rushing behind the counter after stopping by Magnus' for a quickie that turned into something longer, and making a mad, desperate dive for his apron when Clary yells, “Argh!”

“What?” Alec says, spinning around rubbing at his face in horror. Did he grow another head when he wasn’t looking? Did he miss a spot in the shower and have come crusted on his eyebrow? Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time that's happened.

“Oh, nothing,” Clary says sunnily. “Just startled by your happy face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you when you didn’t look like you secretly wanted to murder everyone.”

"I didn't know it was a secret," Alec says.

"You're cute," Clary says like she means just the opposite. She studies him carefully. "Still, you look good, happy."

"I don't know what you mean," Alec argues. "I'm always happy."

He is not. He's always stressed and miserable, but that’s no reason to let her win their fake argument. Alec gets his apron and pulls it over his head, pinning his nametag to the front. Someone has drawn a smiling flower next to his name -- probably Clary in retaliation for that time he drew a bunch of butts all over her Daily Special artwork.

His good mood manages to last a couple hours until someone changes their order three times, then finally takes their drink and lets him know they’re lactose intolerant and wanted soy like he’s some kind of fucking mind reader.

Izzy stops by mid-morning and steps up to the counter. “One triple, venti, half sweet, non-fat, caramel macchiato, please.”

“Fuck you,” Alec says. “I’m not making that.”

“Ohhh, I’m going to tell your manager.”

“Good luck,” Alec says. “If you can find him.” He’s a pot aficionado that once talked to Alec for three straight hours about the minute differences between similar strains of cannabis. He misses a lot of work.

“So, Jace says you haven’t been sleeping in your dorm room very often.”

Oh, honestly, Jace and Izzy gossip like old women. “Jace needs to mind his own business,” Alec tells her.

“Well, he has to tell me or else I wouldn’t know anything at all about your life.” Her tone is light, but she looks hurt.

 _Shit, shit, shit_ , Alec thinks. He hasn’t been seeing her as often, regularly skipping their lunches to spend time with Magnus, who seems to go to class as the mood and weather suits him.

Alec scrubs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, you’re right. How about lunch tomorrow? I’ll pay.” He doesn’t add that he always pays, is not even sure that Izzy has money, even though she supposedly does a work-study on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Her mouth curves up, pleased. "See you after class tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Alec agrees.

"So, where's my drink?" she asks, looking around pointedly.

Jesus, ok. Alec pulls his wallet out and slips a few bills in the till to cover her coffee, then goes to make her overly complicated order.

 

\---

 

The next day, Izzy's standing by the dining hall doors, waving at him. She doesn't really need to -- she stands out in a crowd. A bookbag loaded down with textbooks is sitting by her feet. She's the only person Alec knows that carries around as much crap as he does. With a double major and a work-study, she’s always busy but seems to make time for him as if he needs one more reason to feel guilty.

He follows her inside where they grab their food, then settle back outside under their favorite tree.

Alec realizes with a pang that he's _missed_ her.

“How’re your studies going?” Alec asks, unwrapping his burger. Lately, his iron-clad control seems to be slipping, and he’s just eating what he enjoys, goddamn the consequences. The same could be said for nearly every area of his life.

“Utter shit, as always,” she says brightly. “I’m thinking about quitting this life and joining a convent.”

“You won’t be able to wear your short skirts,” Alec points out, “though I’m not sure what nuns wear under their habits? Do they have a dress code?”

“Way to be supportive, bro.”

“Also, you will be fine. I’m sure you’ll pass all your finals,” Alec hastens to add.

“Thanks,” Izzy says, rolling her eyes. She hesitates, setting her sandwich down. “So, tell me all about your handsome prince.”

“It’s fine,” Alec says a little awkwardly. It’s more than fine, but he doesn’t know how to say it without being unbearably gross and sappy.

“Oh, come on!" She smacks his arm, presumably for being a withholding asshole. "You’re living the ultimate fantasy. How many girls dream about meeting a handsome prince and falling in love?”

“I’m sure that didn’t mean to sound nearly as insulting as it did,” Alec says mildly. “And no one said anything about love.”

“You aren’t?”

Alec shrugs and looks away. “Who knows? We’re just having fun right now.”  
  
It's been amazing, like a dream Alec never dared have. But all dreams end when you wake up, and Magnus has made no secret of the fact that he’s not going to be here for long. He won’t even get any goddamn furniture, except for the confusing desk he bought because he felt sorry for Alec hunched over on the floor, papers strewn out around him and making an absolute mess of the apartment.

Magnus lives out of suitcases like a finicky nomad with expensive dry cleaning bills. Aside from having a security detail that seems to double-function as literal servants, he could be any other rich college kid, except for the nagging feeling Alec has that this isn’t Magnus’ usual state of being. Everything from his jewelry to his monogrammed luggage suggests that he likes _things_. The only reason Alec can figure Magnus hasn’t surrounded himself with little luxuries is that he’s not going to be here long enough to enjoy them.

Izzy’s expression goes serious. “What about him?”

“We don’t sit around talking about our feelings or anything. We’re _men_ ,” Alec says.

They mostly lie in bed and talk about their feelings, but Izzy doesn’t need to know that. Still, though Magnus makes Alec feel comfortable, okay with who he is for the first time that he can remember, they don’t talk about this one thing: the day when Magnus will leave, and Alec will have to go on with his life, alone again.

“As long as you know what you’re doing,” Izzy says.

“Yeah,” Alec agrees with a bravado that sounds fake even to his own ears. “I totally know what I’m doing.”

He does not. He has no fucking idea at all.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this next part was supposed to be one really long chapter, but it just kept getting longer and longer, so i've broken it up. next chapter is written, but kind of messy(-er than usual), so it'll get posted in a couple days. i'm not sure if this is going to be 2 or 3 more chapters. the length of this is really getting frightening.
> 
> some lines from the movie, one situation stolen from New Girl, because ya'll know that show is my jam.

 

 

  
In an unusual turn of events, Alec has the night alone. He’s not working at the cafe, Magnus is inexplicably attending a class, and Jace is at a Toga Party. Jace invited him along, but dressing in a bedsheet and drinking Natty Ice with a jaegerbomb-chaser is not, and has never been, Alec’s idea of a good time. It’s not really Jace’s either, but he says he’s bored now that Alec’s spending all his free time shacking up with his royal sugar daddy.

Aside from some uncomfortably expensive meals and a desk that looks like Cortes smuggled it back from the Aztecs, Magnus hasn’t really given Alec anything besides anxiety-fueled indigestion and some mind-blowing orgasms. As far as money or fame goes, Alec is deeply uninterested in what Magnus can give or what he can do for him, which always seems to shock Magnus.

Alec sighs and looks at his stacks of books, despairing at the fines they’re no doubt accruing. He’ll have to compliment Mrs. Peterson on her sweater set combo to get her to let him check out any more journals.

On a whim, he digs his running shoes out of the back of his closet, tossing aside crumpled t-shirts and boxers. He doesn’t know if any of them are clean or not, but he figures on some sad laundry-less day, he’s bound to find out. Alec hasn’t been running since freshman year, even though he used to be an avid runner. As studies and stress mounted up, he didn’t have time and then lost the will completely.

Dressed in appropriate clothes and sporting running shoes so old the leather creaks, Alec heads to the nearest running trail, hitting his stride a quarter of a mile in. The hardest part is taking the first few steps.

Once he pushes past the initial ache of muscles, the sharp burn of air in his lungs, it gets easier.

He’s one of the rare fools that enjoys running: it clears his head, the steady pounding of his heart in his eardrums, the slap of his shoes against the pavement.

At the half-mile point, his legs scream in protest, but he keeps going. It’s the good kind of pain, the kind of clean ache that reminds him he’s alive.

He doesn’t hear Clary behind him until it’s too late and she’s tapping him on the shoulder, scaring the shit out of him. “Ahh!” he yells in a very manly fashion and then tries to pass it off as a cough.

She gives him a strange look, delicate eyebrows arched, bright red hair pulled into a high, tight ponytail. She looks healthy and young, while Alec‘s wheezing and pasty-white and regretting that bean burrito he had for lunch. “Hey, weird to see you out here,” she says, obnoxiously cheerful.

Alec forgot that she was a runner, too, and in his more youthful, hopeful days had made plans to be her running buddy back before he got overwhelmed by life, and those plans fell by the wayside, much like everything else he enjoyed.

He slows his strides, coming to a stop. He takes a minute - a lot of them, actually - to catch his breath, then says, “Yeah, I just decided to go for a run again.”

“You should have left me known, and we could have gone together.”

There are very few things Alec would enjoy less than to be run circles around by someone who couldn’t reach his armpit with a ladder.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” Alec explains, staring up at the sky to avoid her thoughtful gaze. It’s going dark, the heat is lifting. “I don’t even know why I started running tonight, really.”

“I don’t know, maybe you just like doing something fun? Not that this is fun for most normal people - me, for example - but it beats going to the gym and staring at dudes leaving ball sweat on the equipment.”

“Some of us don’t mind ball sweat,” Alec points out.

“Magnus has really made you funny,” she says and touches his arm lightly. “You’re allowed to do something just because you enjoy it. You don’t always need a reason why. Like me, for example. I dance and paint. I‘m thinking of taking dancing lessons -- oooh, you could come with.”

“I am repulsed by that idea,” Alec says honestly.

“Beats being miserable all the time.”

“I’m not unhappy,” Alec protests.

“So, then what makes you happy?” Clary asks curiously. “Because you seem happy with Magnus.”

Alec is at a loss, couldn’t even begin to answer the question. He doesn’t hate his life, can actually acknowledge it’s a pretty good one. It’s just a quiet feeling of dread that creeps in between the moments when he's drifting off, straddling the space between sleeping and waking. It's the suspicion that no matter how much he has, he’s on the verge of losing it all. The feeling that he has to be perfect, but that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll never be enough for anyone.

He decides to change the subject. “What are you going to do for spring break?”

“I’m not sure yet. I might stick around here,” she says. “You? You going back home?” The coffee shop stays open during breaks but cuts staff, so it’s not like they’d be working together anyway. Still, he’s surprised to find he’ll miss her.

“Going back home on Mom’s orders like always.”

“Sounds fun.” She takes in his pained expression and says, “Or not?”

“Things are always tense,” Alec says. He’s told her a little bit about it, but not much. It’s not due to lack of trust -- he’s just not sure how he feels about it. The theme of his life, it seems.

“Oh, I know! You should bring Magnus.”

Alec scoffs, “Can you even imagine? Magnus back home? He’d eat them alive.”  
“No, I’m serious,” Clary says, warming up to the idea. “He can deflect all the weird awkwardness with your mom. You can show him around. Get a bit of time alone without Jace interrupting you two all the time.”

“Maybe,” Alec allows, thinking carefully.

Seeing Magnus out of his element does have a certain appeal. Maybe Magnus would wear t-shirts and jeans, meet Alec out by the barn at midnight. Besides, he’s a natural charmer and likely to smooth over and help deflect tense situations with his mom when they arise. But it really depends on what Magnus thinks, if he’s even willing to leave the relative luxury of stained carpets and a refrigerator than runs every other day.

“I’ll ask him,” he tells Clary, wondering if he’s making another huge mistake.

  
\---

 

Alec gets his chance the next morning. Magnus is adjusting his necklaces, buttoning and unbuttoning his shirt in front of the dresser mirror.

“Too much?” he asks, gesturing at his shirt, nearly open to mid-chest and showing off a healthy expanse of skin.

Alec doesn’t know how to answer. Of course, it’s too much; Alec desperately wants to see more.

“So,” Alec says faux-casually, “I’m going to be going home for spring break.”

“Ah, well, I’m sure you’ll have a good time,” Magnus says doubtfully, turning away from the mirror. He knows of Alec’s troubled relationship with his mother and tries to gently steer the conversation away when Alec’s getting himself upset.

“It’s going to be a disaster,” Alec says glumly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling on his shoes.

He doesn’t know why his relationship with his mother is so tense. She’s hard on all of her kids, but none more so than Alec. It’s not just being gay -- she wasn’t thrilled or anything, but there‘s something about Alec that she seems to find intrinsically disappointing. He can’t fix it if he doesn’t know what it is.

He stares down at his shoelaces like they hold the cotton-polyester blend answers to the world. They don’t; they just hold dirt and duct tape.

Alec says, “You could come with me if you wanted.”

Magnus seems startled. “You’d want me there?”

Alec looks up at Magnus. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Magnus shakes his head at a loss for words, then clears his throat. It takes a lot to fluster Magnus and Alec isn‘t sure what‘s done it this time. Probably Alec‘s sheer presumption in assuming Magnus would even want to spend his school break with Alec.

“So, where is this fete to take place?”

“Suffern.”

“Pardon?”

“You heard me. Suffern, New York.”

“How ironically named.” Magnus studies his nails.

"Well, actually, it's outside of Suffern. It's not even part of the dinky city. Look, You don’t have to go,” Alec says, fiddling with the laces on his tennis shoes. He's tied and untied them three times now. “My mom is kind of a lot to handle, and it’s not glamorous, it’s a podunk town in the middle of nowhere. If you want to get makeup, there’s only Covergirl. If you want to get a coffee to go, you have it make it at home and then carry one of my mom’s bird mugs around town. I get it, it’s kind of lame for someone like you, but--”

“Alexander,” Magnus interrupts, touching the back of Alec’s hand. “When do we leave?” he asks.

 

\---

 

They pick up Izzy and Jace along the way, Magnus’ bodyguards following in a separately a few car-lengths behind. They worked out some kind of deal with Magnus where they‘ll travel to the city, but stay in a motel after checking the house for security issues. Really, Alec isn’t worried. The only thing he’s worried about is Magnus _actually dying of boredom_.

Jace keeps insisting they stop at every gas station because he’s a cretin that enjoys gas station coffee.

“Each one has a different flavor profile,” Jace says, clambering into the backseat, which they made him share with Magnus’ luggage overflow from the trunk.

“Yes,” Alec says, “depending on if they clean their machines once a month or once a year, I imagine.”

Jace takes a deep drink of his coffee. "This is a once-a-monther, I can tell.”

“Ugh,” Alec says. Jace has never come into the coffee shop where Alec works. And while Alec is grateful because even paying for Izzy’s coffee addiction is wildly expensive, he’s also a little offended. Sure, Alec’s service is shit, but he can make a goddamn decent cup of coffee.

Jace takes another sip and smacks his lips loudly in Alec’s just to watch him shudder with revulsion.

They pull up outside of Suffern around lunchtime. Maryse is on the porch. She moved out here when they were young teenagers to escape the scrutiny after his dad left his high profile job and family to run off with his mistress in a spectacular fashion, a sordid tale involving waffles and unwise amounts of tequila.

Maryse had said she needed a change of pace. This place definitely fits the bill; if the pace were any slower, time would actually be moving backward.

Maryse is waiting on a small bench on the porch. Getting out of the car, Alec is hit by the heat and the soapy smell of tightly furled morning glories, the silver-blue undersides as they curl around the banister that leads up to the porch.

She stands as they approach, ironing invisible wrinkles out of her dress with her hands. She looks the same, hair pulled back, pristine. She never fails to make Alec feel like a child again, no matter how old he is.

He hugs her briefly. She pulls back and takes in Magnus like he’s something stuck to the bottom of her shoe. Alec knows that even though he warned her he was bringing Magnus, she’d secretly hoped they would have been broken up by now. She thinks he distracts Alec from his studies.

He does, but only in the best of ways.

“Mom, this is Magnus,” Alec says, introducing them.

Magnus steps forward and takes her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lightwood.”

 _Holy shit_ , Alec thinks.

“It’s Trueblood,” Maryse says with a tight, unhappy smile.

“Ah, lovely,” Magnus says, recovering quickly. “You have a wonderful family.”

“So, you’re a prince?” Maryse asks.

Alec’s mind races ahead, searching for the hidden barbs. They’re always there.

“Are there a lot of them where you’re from?” Maryse asks innocently.

Magnus’ face goes carefully blank as Alec dies a little inside. “Just the one, I’m afraid.”

“Fantastic,” Maryse says, making it clear that she means anything but. It's a singular talent both she and Izzy share.

Izzy and Jace come up to the porch, red-faced and carrying luggage in each hand. “Thanks for the help, bro,” she huffs at Alec. She looks down at Magnus’ monogrammed suitcase. “What the hell’s in here, bricks?”

“Language, Isabelle,” Maryse chides, and Izzy drops her head in apology.

“I’ll get the rest,” Alec says, picking up the dropped suitcase off the porch. There’s no way in hell Alec wants Izzy to find out the suitcase is just full of Magnus’ shoes.

 

\---

  
Once they get the suitcases unloaded and Maryse lets them know the sleeping arrangements, the guards do their sweep of the house, then leave, stony-faced and with small bows to Magnus. "I will never bow to you," Alec points out reasonably.

"Nor would I want you to," Magnus answers. "I have enough people for that."

Izzy heads to her room to shower and change, and Magnus follows Alec up the stairs.

“I’m going to be bunking with Jace tonight and you can sleep in my room.”

Magnus raises an eyebrow, to which Alec replies, “Uh, my mom likes to pretend none of her children have sex and we all let her have that illusion.”

“That’s very kind.”

Alec grins. “It’s less about being nice and more about being repressed, but it takes all kinds, I guess. When we were growing up, the big sex talk was just my mom tucking a pamphlet into our lunchboxes and never speaking of it again. I eventually had to sit Jace down and have the talk because I was concerned by some of the things he was saying.”

“Tell me you didn’t have the sex talk with Izzy, too?”

“Actually, she had it with me. She didn’t want me to be frightened of my feelings.”

Magnus laughs. “I’m sure that was fun.”

“It was terrifying: there was a peach, an eggplant, and a grapefruit, and not in any of the ways you're thinking.”

“That makes no sense,” Magnus murmurs.

“We couldn’t meet each other’s eyes for weeks afterward. We had to throw stuff in each other’s general direction at the dinner table to avoid accidental eye contact. I ended up with soup in my lap more times than I care to admit.”

Magnus laughs again, loose and easy like Alec’s the funniest guy he’s ever met, like Alec's something _special_.

And Alec knows he could live like this forever, basking in the glow of Magnus' affection, but that it's a feeling he shouldn't get used to. 

It’s all beginning to feel a little too comfortable.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys, i'm so sorry if my ever-changing chapters bother you. i just...don't plan well and this fic is spiraling out of control. to be fair, this is basically chapter 6b. but we are nearly done! i think this will be 10 parts in all? if i can control myself?
> 
> also, pameluke: here's your rain kiss.

 

 

Alec and Jace take turns in the shower and change into some fresh clothes. When Alec leaves the bedroom, Magnus is standing in the hall, polishing his buttons. He looks up at Alec, taking in his plaid shirt and jeans.

“You look like an innocent farmer’s daughter, Ellie Mae.” Magnus grins wickedly. “I’m extremely turned on by this outfit. Would you ever consider denim cut-offs?”

There's no dignified way to answer to answer that, so Alec doesn't. There’s gold braiding on Magnus jacket. Honestly, Magnus looks like a bandleader. The more unsure he is, the more button-y his outfits are as if the gleam from the buttons might distract from his slight hesitance. Alec hopes they don’t walk past anything magnetic; Magnus will be a goner for sure.

“You look fancy,” Alec settles on because it’s the least insulting thing he can think of.

Magnus looks down at his many buttons. “This old thing?”

Alec knows for the fact Magnus bought it especially for the trip, though where Magnus got it is beyond him. Overdressedfortheoccasion.com, maybe.

“Jace, Izzy, and I were going to eat lunch at the fair. I assume you want to come, too?”

Magnus looks intrigued. “I’ve always wanted to see a state fair.”

“It’s not the state fair, this is the town fair and like, don’t expect much,” Alec warns him. The town fair is basically two folding tables full of handmade desserts, a corndog stand, and a rented bouncy castle that Alec fears is contributing to the spread of superbugs outside of hospitals. The big draw is the tractor racing, though, and Jace participates every year in some souped-up monstrosity on wheels.

The field of mechanical engineering should be terrified to have Jace join its ranks, if Jace can ever manage to pass any class besides fencing, eating horribly, and drinking cheap beer through straws.

Still, Alec thinks Magnus might appreciate the sheer spectacle of grown men on tractors racing around a large circle made of hay while children cheer them on. It’s not yachting-in-the-Mediterranean-levels of exciting, but the year Jace’s tractor caught fire and he was subsequently disqualified sure got Alec’s heart racing.

“My expectations are tempered,” Magnus says happily, going outside with Alec and shielding his eyes against the bright glare of the sun.

It’s hot enough that Alec wore short sleeves and resigned himself to having a farmer’s tan all summer. 

“We should probably check on Jace before eating. Make sure he hasn’t singed off his eyebrows again.”

Magnus mouths the word, “again,” and follows Alec to the center of the festivities.

Plenty of eyes follow Magnus on the way to the barn where the tractors are stored, whether it’s because he’s ridiculously attractive, fairly famous, or dressed like an extra in an 80’s-era Janet Jackson video, Alec doesn’t know and doesn’t much care. He’s proud to be seen with him.

Alec has even gotten used to the occasional paparazzo hiding in the bushes outside his dorm, though campus has temporarily tightened security while Magnus is attending. Paparazzi don’t dare get close; as it turns out his resting bitch face is good for something other than getting him increasingly poor marks in customer satisfaction surveys. Joke’s on the customers. His boss is much too fucking lazy to sort through them, so he makes Alec clear them out every Friday.

Clary's teaching him how to make paper flower garlands out of the negative ones. 

The surveys are located on the counter next to the tip jar, but when he works with Clary, he lets her take all the cash home at the end of the shift. He knows those tips aren’t for him.

Across the street, there’s a dark-haired little girl happily eating a corndog. He’s seen her around, but can’t place her name.

Alec squints his eyes, looking up. The sun’s pounding down on them, so hot he can see the waves of heat rolling over the asphalt, distorting the horizon. He doesn't know how Magnus manages to look fresh as a rose in long sleeves while Alec's crotch feels uncomfortably like a swamp.

He's not sure what makes him turn his head, some commotion to his left, but he sees the little girl he noticed earlier clutching at her throat, eyes wide and lips pale. Alec sprints across the street, sees the half-eaten corndog at her feet and looks into her open, silent mouth. Unable to get a visual, the eges of her lips turning a pale cyanotic blue, Alec grabs the girl from behind and wraps his arms around her small midsection. Unthinkingly, he leans her forward and pulls up and in, firmly. Immediately, a pice of hotdog comes flying out of the girl’s mouth and she takes a few loud, gasping breaths. Alec lets go of her and rubs comforting circles on her back as she cries, panicked tears rolling down her cheeks and collecting on her chin.

“You’re okay,” Alec reassures her in low, calming tones.

“Madzie!” he hears someone cry, and then there’s a woman wrapping her arms around the crying girl. “Oh my god, Mazie!”

“She choked on her corndog,” Alec explains. "She's okay now."

“And you saved her?” the woman asks Alec, her own eyes filling with tears.

“Well, anyone could have done it,” Alec says quickly, a little horrified. It’s not like he did anything special. He desperately hopes the woman doesn’t cry. He deals terribly with crying women, Alec thinks, remembering all the times he patted them awkwardly on the back or that one instance when he offered a fist bump.

“Thank you,” the woman says, wrapping an arm around Alec’s shoulders and crushing Madzie in-between their bodies.

“No problem,” Alec mumbles.

She takes a step back. “I’m Catarina. I work at the hospital. When you’re looking for jobs, are you thinking of coming home? I’d love to work with you.”

“Uh, it’s so far into the future, I haven’t--” Alec starts.

“No, I get it," Catarina says. "Worry about graduation, then medical school first.” She glances across the street at Magnus, where he’s standing and watching them carefully, uncharacteristically pensive. “Or maybe you have other plans,” she says with a teasing grin.

Alec smiles back weakly. He doesn’t know, but this has never felt like home to him, just another pitstop along the path to get where he thinks he’s going--but he doesn’t know exactly where that is or what he wants it to look like.

Back before he met Magnus, Alec thought he had it all planned out, but now everything’s so nebulous, undefined. Sometimes people come into your life that are so significant that they erase the carefully drawn lines of your life and transform them completely into something new and unrecogrecognizable. Instead of making the next move, they flip the table and start a different game, one without rules or a timer.

She shakes his hand. “It was nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” Alec says, then to Madzie, “And you.”

Madzie wiggles down from her mother’s arms and takes a running leap at Alec, who catches her reflexively. “Thank you,” she says into his neck, holding him close.

Alec closes his eyes and hugs her back, all the troubling confusion and discomfort forgotten.

  
\---

  
“Hey, hero,” Izzy greets Alec as he and Magnus join her in the barn.

“Stop,” Alec says. “How’d you even find out about it?”

“Alec,” Izzy says, exasperated. “Everyone already knows. There’s nothing to talk about here and you‘re cute and kind of a big deal. Going to be a hot-shot doctor, dating actual royalty. The first time you wore a blue shirt, the town couldn’t stop talking about it for a month.”

“That’s not true,” Alec protests.

“Whatever,” Izzy says, apparently already bored with Alec’s neurosis and the conversation.

Jace interrupts them, coming up and holding his wrist. “I think I sprained it. It’s not bad or anything. Catarina seems to think ice and keeping it still for a few days will be enough.”

“I’m not going to ask how it happened,” Alec says, a terrible suspicion growing. Jace's wrist does look slightly swollen, but he doesn't seem to be in an inordinate amount of pain and he's moving his fingers. 

“Ha fucking ha,” Jace says. “Not whacking it, making modifications to my tractor.”

“Again? You got disqualified for that last year,” Izzy says.

“Someone is going to have to ride in my place,” Jace says, staring meaningfully at Alec and ignoring Izzy completely. He tends to do that whenever anyone points out the fallacy of his schemes. The whole family has dubbed it “selective Jace audio range.” He basically operates on his own frequency.

“Listen,” Alec says, eying the purple tractor with yellow flames painted down the side, “I could be blowing ten guys in a locker room during pride month and I would still not be gay enough to ride that in public.”

“How alarmingly specific,” Magnus says, sounding intrigued.

“No one asked me,” Izzy mutters darkly, filing her nails.

“Would you want to?” Alec asks curiously. She’s never shown the slightest interest, usually texts or studies while Jace races. Once, she gave herself a pedicure.

“Of course not,” Izzy snaps, “but it would have been nice to have been asked.”

“I can do it,” Magnus volunteers.

“You?” Izzy asks, insultingly incredulous.

Alec feels the weird need to protect Magnus’ honor, even though he‘s pretty sure Magnus can do it himself. “Hey,” he protests, “I’m certain he could do it if he wanted to.”

“See?” Magnus says, looking delighted. “It’s settled.”

“Right,” Alec says, wheeling around and grabbing Magnus’ arm as he turns. He lowers his voice to tell Magnus, “You are going to die. And then your bodyguards are going to kill me when they find out I’ve let the crowned prince die for a trophy made out of paper mache.”

Alec can't help but think of all the ways this might end in disaster. What if Magnus is simply too rich to ride a tractor and it spontaneously combusts like Alec’s self-confidence when anyone asks him to clarify his thoughts?

Magnus pats his arm, heading towards the tractor, where Jace has wandered off, admiring his handiwork. “You worry too much.”

 _Well, shit. He’s not wrong_ , Alec thinks.

“Is he really going to do the tractor race?” Izzy asks doubtfully.

“That’s what he says,” Alex replies, staring at Jace and Magnus, heads bent low together as they whisper furiously back and forth. Jace’s arms keep moving in a pulling motion that Alec would rather not examine too closely.

Magnus claps Jace on the shoulder then strides over to where Alec and Izzy are watching them. “Are you going to wish me luck as I do battle?” he asks Alec, entirely too pleased with himself.

“You’re going to ride a tractor in a race, not fight for the liberation of Panama,” Alec can’t help but point out. He's worried, but he's not _that_ worried. “Technically, old people even do it.”

“Aw, you suck all the fun out of everything,” Magnus says.

Alec steps close and says, voice low enough not to be overheard, “That’s not what you said last night.”

Alec watches in fascination as Magnus’ face goes a lovely deep berry red. Next to them, Izzy laughs loudly. So, Alec might not have been as quiet as he thought.

“I’ll see you at the finish line,” Alec says, dropping a quick peck on Magnus’ still-hot cheek.

“S-see you there,” Magnus says, flustered, as he takes a step back and stumbles, eyes still locked on Alec’s lips.

  
\---

 

The race starts out as normally as any race primarily involving farming machinery can. The contestants make their laps while the crowd yells as enthusiastically as they might cheer at the Indy 500 or drink Mountain Dew Code Red. 

During the last lap, Magnus is mid-pack and visibly frustrated. Approaching the last turn, he whips around the tractor in front of him as fast as, well, as fast as something that won’t break 37 mph can go.

Less than 400 feet from the finish line, Magnus shoots Jace a conspiratorial wink and switches a lever that Alec is pretty sure isn’t standard. Neon pink underbody lights turn on beneath the tractor and before Alec’s brain has time to process that tidbit of information, a column of flames shoot out the massive chromed smokestack.

Alec watches in horror as all of his nightmares come true. It's happening, it’s really fucking happening: the tractor is self-destructing under the massive weight of Magnus’ poshness.

With a squeal of tires and a huge kick-up of dust, the tractor shoots forward past the other tractors, past the finish line, bursts through the bales of hay and the screaming, scattering audience, until the tractor mows through the thankfully empty row of picnic tables. Magnus, flushed and sweating, pulls back on the lever with both hands, and the tractor comes to a screeching halt a few inches shy of the corndog vendor crouched behind his cart.

Magnus, liberally coated in dirt and grinning wildly, stands up and raises his arms in victory.

There’s dead silence--

\-- until the crowd erupts in ear-shattering cheers, Alec, embarrassingly loudest of all. “Take your victory lap!” Alec yells out between cupped hands.

Alec watches Magnus in his fancy braided jacket, standing on a souped-up tractor, arms raised and whooping, and knows with deep-seated certainty that this is the best moment of his life.

 

\---

  
After tons of congratulations and far too many corndogs, they head back home, Alec holding Magnus' ugly trophy. On the way, it starts raining, a light mist that makes the world go hazy and gray.

“I forgot to tell you earlier, how I proud I was of you. I find competence such a turn on," Magnus says, coming to an abrupt stop in front of the house. The lights are off inside. Izzy and Jace are still partying back in town.

“Stop,” Alec says, well and truly embarrassed now. “It was really nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing to that little girl or her mother,” Magnus says softly. He takes Alec’s free hand and laces their fingers together. “You really care.”

“Of course I do,” Alec says, surprised. “Why’d you think I wanted to be a doctor?”

“I don’t know,” Magnus says with a shrug. “I guess I assumed it was what your family wanted.”

“Of course it is,” Alec says. “But it’s what I want for myself--to help people. I think if we’re able, everyone should help where they can. It’s our duty as human beings to help each other.”

“You’re an extraordinary man, Alexander.”

“Not really,” Alec says.

Magnus shakes his head ruefully. “You really have no idea about yourself.”

He really doesn’t, but with Magnus’ help, he thinks he’s getting a better idea.

They’re drawing closer, then kissing in front of the porch, the morning glories finally blooming, a smudge of shocking electric blue. Distantly, Alec hears the trophy hit the ground, but he doesn’t pay much attention. All he can smell is wet earth and Magnus, the gel he uses to style his hair sticky between Alec's fingers as he runs his hands through Magnus' hair, pulling it forward and pushing it back as his lips move hungrily against Magnus'. He catalogs the feel of Magnus’ fingers digging into his back, his buttons scraping and catching against Alec’s shirtfront.

If Alec could have a thousand years with a thousand minutes in each hour, he doesn’t think it would be enough time.

It’s raining harder now, smudging Magnus’ eyeliner, rivulets of black smeared across his cheeks, turning the world into a dizzying swirl of color and sensation. But neither make a move to break the kiss.

Alec amends his earlier foolish thought: _this_ is the best moment of his life.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i split these chapters up to be as angst-free as possible while still having a story with some kind of structure. :)
> 
> eta: i wrote this silly fic the way i did to try to cheer myself and fandom up. it's not super realistic, nor is it going to be. requires a lot of suspension of disbelief to get our sweet rom-com on, ok? :/ :/

 

 

 

 

They make their way inside, shivering and clothes soaked. Magnus' jacket is going to be ruined forever, but he doesn't look like he minds. Magnus had tried to get Alec to follow him to the tractor barn for a quickie until Alec pointed out anyone could come in, which didn’t deter Magnus at all until Alec pointed out that someone could actually be children.

"Ah, my great nemesis," Magnus had sighed.

"Children?"

"Decency," Magnus said.

"That's pretty basic," Alec said, wondering at the fact that he was dating someone who had a _great nemesis_ in the first place.

“Follow me,” Magnus said, leading the way. They’d kissed for a while against the banister, every three steps, flowers crushed beneath Alec's back ad Magnus pressed him against the wood.

They kiss until Alec's lips go slick and numb, until they're right outside of the room Alec and Jace share, Magnus’ hands tight around Alec’s hips as Alec chases his lips.

“Shower in thirty minutes?” Magnus suggests.

“Yeah, meet you there,” Alec promises and heads into his room. Jace is already changed and in bed. “Done being gross with your boyfriend?” he asks, feet sticking off the end of the air mattress, blond hair a golden bird's nest above the covers.

“Soon as you’re done being a douchebag,” Alec retorts. He didn’t see Jace and Iz get in, probably because he was busy being gross with his boyfriend.

“Never, Jace says, his one blue eye gleaming in the dark. “Nah, man, I’m happy for you.” He sounds a little wistful.

“Yeah,” Alec says. He remembers Jace coming to live with them over a decade ago, a blond boy with more anger than stature, all sharp words and raw, jagged hurt. Alec isn’t sure when they became this, sharing the same room for years, living in a cloud of each other’s farts, but he’s mostly grateful for it. Despite Jace's proclivity for manic, jaw-slackening failure, he's always the first to support Alec when he doubts himself, the first to fight for Alec's maidenly virtue, the first to say, "That dude was a 6, tops. You're at least an 8 -- you could do better."

Alec grabs a change of clothes and hurries to the bathroom.

In theory, he disapproves of shower sex on sheer principle: it is never a good idea and almost always leads to tragedy, but also this time holds the promise of Magnus naked. Magnus covered in soapsuds. Magnus. Alec weighs that visual against inevitable humiliating and hard to explain personal injury, and Magnus just barely scoots ahead.

His feet move faster.

The room is already filled with steam so thick it feels like inhaling cotton. A pile of soggy clothes is shoved into the corner, shower already running, Magnus humming under his breath. He can't carry a tune, bears more than a passing resemblance to a cat being tortured, but Alec can't remember ever hearing anything better.

Jesus, Alec's really a mess.

“Is that you, Alexander?” Magnus calls out.

“If it’s not, you’re about to have an awkward conversation with my mom,” Alec says, stripping off his clothes.

“Hmmm, already done that,” Magnus says, pulling back the curtain to let Alec in. Magnus’ face is scrubbed bare, hot water sluicing over his skin. He looks younger without all his fanciness and braids in inexplicable places to distract. Alec likes him about any way he comes, would be perfectly happy if Magnus were to decide light green would be the only color he’d wear from here on out and spend the rest of his days walking around looking like a giant stalk of celery, but this Magnus is especially great.

It’s more difficult than romantic -- Alec seems to sprouted an abundance of elbows -- but the water feels good, and Magnus feels even better slotted up against Alec’s body.

Magnus drops a kiss against Alec’s bare shoulder as Alec wets his hair and pushes it back off his face.

“It’s been a wild day, huh?”

“Filled with a long car ride and thrilling pyrotechnics at the end,” Alec says, “speaking of, if the rain lets up, there’ll be fireworks later.”

“Did Jace have anything to do with it?”

“Shockingly, no,” Alec answers as Magnus’ palms move over the flat of his belly. They learned their lesson a few years ago when they had to rebuild the tractor barn.”

“Mmmm,” Magnus says into his back. His hand dips lower, rubbing large circles, hand creeping perilously close to Alec’s cock. Alec jerks his hips, a little amused by his own impatience. Not too long ago, he was a nervous, confused semi-virgin.

Now, he’s a nervous, confused _sex-maniac_. Obligingly, Magnus’s hand encircles Alec’s cock and Alec leans his head back against Magnus’ shoulder, water cascading down the front of his body.

Magnus’ cock rubs up against Alec’s ass.

Despite the location of their rendezvous, there’s something fabulously dirty about having his eyes closed, Magnus’ body taking Alec's weight. The fit is perfect, Magnus’ body slotted up behind his own, his cock nestled between Alec’s ass, the sharp jut of his hipbones flush.

Magnus is just the right height to hook his chin over Alec’s shoulder as his hand jacks Alec’s cock lazily. Without lube, there’s a little drag, but even that feels right. He sighs, feeling like he's floating. Magnus starts humming again, something terrible, and Alec lets it flow over him like the water. His orgasm creeps up on him gradually, like a gentle wave cresting and then breaking on the shore.  
Even that comparison seems right because Alec once thought of his feeling for Magnus like the ocean, dark and scary, but now it reminds him of the better part of that day: warm on the sand, the feeling of being wholly content with his life, a feeling he hasn’t had in a long time.

Magnus thrusts his hips faster, his cock dragging across Alec’s ass, then he’s coming, hotter than the water and infinitely more vital, against Alec’s skin while pressing gasping, open-mouthed kisses to Alec's neck.

On some desperate day, they’re going to end up fucking with shampoo or some other equally shitty choice, but not today, it seems.

Magnus sighs. “We’re going to run out of hot water.”

“Just a minute longer,” Alec says, Magnus' arms still wrapped tight around him, tipping his face into the water. In this moment, where he has everything he has ever wanted, mind finally quiet, Alec has to admit to himself that he just might be stupidly, hopelessly in love with Magnus Bane.

 

\---

 

  
Later that night, each in their respective rooms, Alec’s awoken from a light doze by Magnus' phone ringing across the hall, and then the deep rumble of Magnus answering the phone half-asleep, voice low and scratchy. Alec grins fondly, letting himself drift as he replays the events of the day, his chest warm.

After a while, Alec hears the floor outside his bedroom creak. The footsteps hover in front of the bedroom for a minute and then move on. Alec sits up in bed, glances over at Jace snoring unpleasantly beside him.

He slips out of bed, careful not to wake Jace and leaves the room, tugging a shirt down over his head as he goes.

He sees a shadow disappear around a corner of the foot of the stairs and then the sounds of the front door opening and closing. Alec follows, flipping on the porch light before he steps outside.

Outside, Magnus is sitting on the same small bench that his mom greeted them from the previous day. The rain's stopped and it’s dark, quiet, nothing but the sound of crickets chirping. Alec used to hate nighttime, when the day stopped and there was nothing but him and his chaotic thoughts.

Alec knows something’s wrong immediately.

Sure, Magnus is given to dramatics, but it’s usually the happy kind.

Magnus seems unsurprised when Alec sits down next to him.

“My father died,” he says abruptly. He clutches his phone in his hands, knuckles white.

“Jesus,” Alec says. “Magnus, I’m so sorry.” He’s not sure Magnus even hears him; he looks stunned.

“It wasn't completely unexpected. He's had health problems for a while, but--" Magnus stops and takes a few shuddering breaths. "My mother called, I have to go home.”

“Of course,” Alec says. “How long are you going to stay?”

Magnus looks at him strangely. “I have to go home," he repeats.

Though it's hardly the first time, it still feels unfair the way the bottom drops out of his stomach each time Alec's proven right about the fact that he never gets to have anything good for long. Of course. It’s so obvious, Alec doesn’t know why it didn’t occur to him. He's such a fucking idiot.

“You once asked me if I care about anything and I didn’t answer because I didn’t know," Magnus says conversationally, face lit up by yellow porchlight, unfairly handsome.

“And do you know now?” Alec asks dully.

“I watched you save that girl today. I’ve watched you this whole time, always trying to do better, to be better.”

“And usually failing," Alec points out, hearing the sharp edge of bitterness in his own tone.

“Doesn’t matter,” Magnus says. “All that matters is that you keep trying -- you taught me that. Can't give up just because something doesn't come easily.”

 _Well, how fucking nice for him_ , Alec thinks. He taught Magnus how to leave him.

Magnus hesitates, then says, voice husky, “I want you to understand that you did this, Alexander. You made me care about life again."

When Alec doesn't say anything, Magnus continues, “I lost my best friend a couple years ago in an accident.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alec says, aching to reach out. Magnus is slowly grinding his heart into dust, but his first instinct is still to comfort him.

"I stopped caring about anything. I was sleeping around, partying too much, just--so fucking lost. I was going to abdicate. I eventually came to the university to get a taste of civilian life to see if I could handle it, but then I met you and you care so much about everything, everyone. I was in awe of you from the first moment we met."

The worst part of this whole thing, the thing that he knows will crush him when he wakes up in the morning, the thing that'll follow him around for years to come, is that Alec totally gets it.  
It's responsibility, duty. The only difference between him and Magnus is the sheer magnitude of it.

It hits him like a shot to the chest. They are essentially over. Even if they don't break up and Magnus flies back and forth, the idea of not being able to wake up next to him, the idea that they might see each other twice a year if they’re very lucky, makes him feel hollow, completely scooped out and empty. Long distance relationships don’t work. Everyone knows that.

“You could come with me,” Magnus says hesitantly.

“And what would that look like?” Alec asks, sick to his stomach with regret even as he asks. It's not going to happen, and he doesn't want to hear some beautiful version of events that his life could be, if Alec had less responsibilities, if he were a little more careless with his future. Magnus will make it sound beautiful and easy; it’s his particular gift of persuasion. Alec wouldn’t love him nearly as much if he were even a bit different. And in the privacy of his mind, about the plunge off the cliff of utter devastation, Alec knows with utter certainty that it _is_ love. It was all along.

Sure, he could go with Magnus. He could be Magnus’ professional boyfriend, wait around in fancy rooms for him to get done with meetings, but he doesn’t think he’d be happy like that. He _knows_ he wouldn’t.

“You won’t, though, will you?” Magnus says, echoing Alec's thoughts.

Alec shakes his head, unable to speak.

“Had to ask,” Magnus says, trying for levity. His voice cracks. “I called my bodyguards, they’ll be here in a few minutes. I should probably go in and pack.”

He reaches out to touch Alec’s cheek, but Alec can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the banister, the darkness beyond their small circle of light. The porch paint is chipping; his mom should have repainted it last year. He might do it on this break; after all, without Magnus, he’ll have plenty of time--

“Okay,” Magnus whispers, dropping his hand into his lap. He stands and crosses the deck. The screen door clatters shut behind him.

It’s not raining anymore, Alec notes. It’s a good thing, too. The heat was growing intolerable, heavy like a weight pressing against his chest.

It's stopped raining and the cool air drifts across his hot face, his stinging eyes, the heat wave completely broken.

  
\---

 

Magnus never really had a chance to unpack, so he’s ready in a few minutes. Alec helps him carry his suitcases to the front door, careful not to wake anyone. Magnus thinks it’s better for Alec to explain what happened in the morning and send along his warm regards.

 _Warm regards_. It’s about as passionate as Alec's eighty-year-old nana. “You’ll call?” Magnus asks.

“Sure,” Alec says, setting the suitcase down. Magnus’ bodyguards are waiting and they step up to start loading the luggage into the car. One hands Magnus a small envelope that Magnus tucks into his pocket. “And we can FaceTime or whatever. It’ll be okay,” Alec says, mostly trying to convince himself.

He doesn’t do a very good job of it. He might be new to relationships, but he’s not new to life, and nothing in this twenty-odd years on the Earth has lead him to believe this is going to end well for either of them. As they both move on with their lives, the calls will become less frequent. Without the joy of his touch, Alec will forget why it felt so good. They'll both forget. And if you live with pain long enough, it becomes rote, a dull ache that barely registers, just another small hurt you learn to live with.

The words -- _stay, please_ \-- linger on the tip of his tongue, desperate to escape. Alec bites down on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. So what if Magnus stays? It doesn’t change who they are intrinsically, or the mountains of differences between their experiences, their expectations of the world, their stations in life. For all that they're trapped in similar circumstances, they’re just too different.

Magnus’ mouth twists, eyes opaque, unreadable, and already a thousand miles away. Alec’s never been reminded so much of the Magnus he first met in this moment, trapped between the fleeting warmth of their past and the dark uncertainty of their future.

“It’s been--” Magnus says, then chokes down the rest of his words. He sets the envelope on the bench.

“Yeah,” Alec says.

Magnus leans forward and presses a soft kiss to Alec’s cheek. “I’ll call you when the plane lands.”

“Sure,” Alec says, though if Magnus forgets, Alec won’t be mad.

In the town square, the fireworks have started, a distant boom that sounds like thunder, strains of cheerful music filtering across the distance. Over the treetops, Alec sees the first crack of light, pink, then orange, then green in quick succession, painting Magnus’ face in splashes of color before plunging them both into the darkness.

 _I’ll miss you every moment of every day_ , Alec thinks.

“Be safe,” Alec says.

Magnus nods and heads towards the beckoning headlights of the waiting car. Another burst of fireworks, this times shades of pink and purple, the crackle as they explode outwards. It’s hard to believe a few hours ago, Alec and Magnus were considering staying up late to watch them together.

They still are, in a way, but nothing like he’d imagined at the time.

This next one is a fountain of shocking blue, bigger than the rest, the rumble of the explosion barely louder than the beating of Alec’s heart.

But Alec’s not even paying attention anymore, eyes trained on the taillights disappearing into the distance.

  
\---

 

Alec doesn’t know how long he sits outside, but the fireworks have long been over.

His mom sits down on the bench next to him. Her hair’s down, face makeup free. He remembers her like this, years ago. It’s like looking through a telescope through the years to simpler times.

“You want to tell me about it?”

“I’m not sure what I’d say,” Alec says

The bench creaks beneath Maryse as she shifts her weight. “You can try if you want.”

“His father died. He decided to go home. Responsibilities," Alec says shortly.

“How do you feel about it?”

“He left because of me -- for good reasons, I guess. Said he’d learned responsibility from me.”

“Yeah, you do responsibility well.”

Alec can’t help the resentfulness that creeps into his voice, threading into his words. “Yeah, guess it's one more thing learned from you.”

His mom visibly flinches, but Instead of devolving into their usual argument, she surprises him by touching his arm. “Does he make you happy?”

“What do you care? You hate Magnus.”

“Of course I don’t. I don’t even know him," Maryse says, surprised. "Does he make you happy?"

Surprised into honesty, Alec says, “He did.”

“Robert wasn’t my first boyfriend,” Maryse says.”Did you know what?”

“You never said," Alec says, interested despite the weird turn in the conversation. She never talks about life before his father. 

“I met my first boyfriend in college. It burned fast and bright, but there was no future for us -- not the kind I wanted. I had ambition, big dreams.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Alec, one day you’ll realize that getting older doesn’t mean having any more answers, it just means having more mistakes to learn from.”

“That makes me super happy about getting older," Alec says.

“I like to think it’s made me less afraid to make mistakes.” She slips her hand up to his hair and without thinking, he finds himself leaning into that warm touch. She hasn't touched him like this since he was a child, but in this moment, he's never felt more like one -- lost and afraid. “For what it’s worth, despite how it all ended, I’ve never regretted marrying Robert. After all, it got me you, Izzy, and Jace. And Alec, I have always been proud of all of you.”

Maryse sighs and continues, "I worry about you more than Izzy and Jace. They'll always be fine. They take care of themselves, but you'll put everyone else first even if it kills you. You’re too much like me. You agonize over decisions until they're taken out of your hands."

In an ironic twist of fate, he and his mom are more alike than Alec ever knew.

“Go after him or don’t. Finish your degree or don’t. I know what I want for you, but it's your life," Maryse says. "All these decisions, the things we do, they're just another step on a very long path. The worst mistake you can make is letting time make your choices for you.”

"I can't let anyone down," Alec continues doggedly.

"I'd worry more about letting yourself down," Maryse points out. "You can't be happy with your life until you're happy with yourself. And that's all I've ever wanted for all of my children."

Alec blinks rapidly against the moisture gathering there and coughs. “So, a boyfriend, huh?” Alec says, pointedly changing the subject from the thoughts that seem too large to tackle. “Must have been pretty hot.”

"That man, his hands,” Maryse says, sighing.

“Oh, gross,” Alec mutters. “Sorry I asked.”

“What? I’m just saying.” Maryse says with a chuckle. “Besides, don’t you have more important things to do?”

“Like what? Sleep? Who needs it?” Alec jokes weakly. He's exhausted, but he doesn't know if he'll ever sleep well again.

Maryse shifts in her seat and picks something up, the white envelope Magnus left there earlier. Alec completely forgot about it. She hands it to Alec, who opens it with shaking hands.

Inside, is a plane ticket.

“Shit,” Alec says, staring dumbly down at the departure time. In six hours.

He can see the map of his life, the old familiar lines of it falling back into place: graduate with honors, go on to a top med school. Internship, residency, fellowship.

But nothing means a damn thing if he’s not happy with who he is, if he has to face down those long years alone. Maybe he and Magnus won't work out in the long term, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't try. His mom's right. He can't let fear and indecision steer the course of his life. He owes the effort to Magnus. And he owes it to himself.

Alec stands up, holding the ticket in one hand. He and Magnus aren’t done yet, he decides, not like this.

Alexander Gideon Lightwood is going to go get his man. A light breeze rustles across his bare legs and he looks down at his boxers, horrified.

He should probably put on some pants first.

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tell me, tell me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoo! the end of another long fic. this was my camp NaNoWriMo, so i managed to finish despite re-writing the ending about four times. because i didn't end things as neatly as i would have liked, i will probably write a followup fic at a later date. but first, i have to take care of the big bang fics!
> 
> thanks for reading and encouraging me along the way! <3!

 

 

 

 

 Izzy is sitting on the floor by his bedroom door, wrapped up in a blanket like a big sleepy sibling burrito.

“Eavesdropping is an ugly habit,” Alec informs her.

She blinks up at him. “Learned it from you. How’d it go with Mom?”

“Okay, I think,” Alec says, rubbing the back of his neck, “but I don’t have time to talk. I have to get to the airport.”

“All right, give me five and I’ll be ready to go. Get Jace’s lazy ass up, too. He‘ll be mad if we go without him and he’s stuck with mom alone for the rest of the week.”

“She’s not that bad, Alec says, feeling the need to defend his mom. They’re not okay yet, may never really see eye to eye on most things, but they understand each better now.

“Must have been a hell of a talk.”

“I guess it was,” Alec says.

“Good, you can explain her to me on the way.”

“Iz, you really don’t have to--”

She holds up a hand. “I’m going to do you a favor and stop you before you say anything stupid.”

“What’s going on?” Jace asks, leaning against the open door and scrubbing a hand through his hair, his day-old scruff. It’s hard to believe Alec was ever intimidated by him.

“Alec is going to go after Magnus,” Izzy tells him. “It’s going to be very romantic.”

“Well, I live for romance,” Jace grunts as Alec pushes past him into their room. He packs a bag quickly, grabbing his laptop, phone, a couple changes of clothes, then pulls on a clean pair of jeans. Outside the room, he can hear Jace asking where Magnus went.

After Izzy explains, Jace says, “I thought he was just in the bathroom. Dude spends a lot of time in the bathroom, not that I judge.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Alec calls out as he pulls on his socks and tennis shoes. They’re still muddy and damp from his walk back from town last night. Better times, he supposes, though don’t good memories always look shinier with the benefit of retrospect? Life would be infinitely sweeter if everyone could recognize the best moments of their lives while they were living them.

“C’mon,” Izzy yells out.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alec says, grabbing his duffle bag and double-checking that his plane ticket is in his pocket.

Jace is running down the stairs, footsteps thundering and saying “But really, Magnus always has so many buttons and zippers on his clothes, no wonder it takes him two hours in the bathroom. I’m just saying--”

  
\---

  
“No, but feel my bicep,” Jace says, the occasional streetlamp flashing across his face, highlighting his strange blue-brown eyes. “I think my new workout routine is really helping.”

“Would you keep both hands on the steering wheel,” Alec says, exasperated and batting Jace’s arm away with one hand while holding his phone up, trying to get a signal with the other. The only reason Jace is driving is that he slid into the driver's side, declaring Izzy drives like a maniac and Alec drives like a granny.

Unflattering comparisons aside, Jace isn’t actually wrong. He’d edging just above 5 miles over the speed limit, enough get them there fast, but not fast enough to get them pulled over. Alec once got stopped by a cop to ask why he was driving so slow and if he required medical assistance. Jace nearly laughed himself sick when Alec told him about it later, red-faced and holding his ticket.

Alec tries his phone again. Magnus must have his off, or else the reception is lousy in the airport, too. No matter what happens, they always seem to keep missing each other. He tucks the phone back in his pocket with a sigh.

From the backseat, Izzy snores loudly.  
  
If Alec wasn’t terrified of missing Magnus’ phone call, he’d be recording her for future blackmail material.

“No, seriously, buddy, my quadriceps look amazing.”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Alec says. “Would you put your goddamn leg down and watch the road?”

 

\---

  
They get to the airport just as the sun starts peeking over the horizon, romantic and perfect, if not for the large sweat stains creeping out from his armpits.

On the way, they did actually get pulled over by the cops, but Jace managed to talk his way out of a ticket. “It‘s a skill,” Jace said with a shrug when Alec stared at him in amazement. “Also, cops are deeply unnerved by grown men crying.” After another short pitstop, Izzy fell back asleep with a donut in her mouth, and Jace was still riding a tidal wave of gas station caffeine and sugar.

Alec stops at the front doors of the airport, staring at the huge crowd milling around, the sheer size and scope of it. It’s not like he hasn’t been to LaGuardia, but he hasn’t ever tried to find one single man in it.

“C’mon, you’re running out of time,” Izzy says, grabbing his arm and pulling. “I’m wearing heels, and I’m moving faster than you.”

Alec takes off towards the Delta terminal, pushing through the crowd and ignoring the angry protests, passing white corridors that look identical, heart hammering in his chest. Somewhere in this labyrinth of terminals is Magnus, sitting alone and thinking Alec would let him go back to his father’s funeral by himself, possibly completely unaware that Alec loves him.

Maybe it won’t change anything, but fear of failure is a real shitty determining factor when making decisions.

He runs past a food court, the smell of convenience food noxious and kind of appealing, overlaid with the desperation and general misery or weary travelers. This is one of the few places on earth he can buy rubber sandals in his size, deodorant, and a chicken sandwich within the same two feet.

“Hey,” Jace says, grabbing Izzy and Jace by the arms. “Look over there.” Down one dead-end hall is a small vehicle, a cross between a shuttle and a golf cart. Alec distinctly remembers seeing senior citizens zip around the terminal in them. “Some fool left the keys in the ignition. It’s basically begging us to take it.”

“Does this count as grand theft auto or petty larceny?” Izzy asks thoughtfully, already heading towards the cart, clearly unbothered by the prospect of a felony.

“Who cares? We can cover way more ground this way,” Jace says, hopping into the driver’s side.

“Izzy, Iz,” I’m not sure I can do this,” Alec protests.

“C’mon, Alec. Take a chance,” Izzy says. “Isn’t Magnus worth it?”

Oh, fuck it all. She just had to pull the Magnus card.

“You got this. You’re tougher than you know,” Izzy says. “After all, we’re Lightwoods--”

“We break noses and accept the consequences,” Alec finishes for her.

“That’s right.”

“But not really,” Alec says anxiously. “Because I’m going to be a doctor and that’s felony assault.”

“Oh, Alec,” Jace says with a sigh. “Get in the fucking golf cart.”

“Yeah, okay,” Alec says, hoisting himself up and pulling his bag in beside him.

Jace starts it up, and the engine hums to life with a purr. “All right,“ Jace says, eyes gleaming.

It starts and Jace pulls out of the hall and into the main corridor, then keeps going, gliding at a scintillating 5mph.

“Is this the fastest it goes?” Izzy asks, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Alec looks over. Next to them, an elderly gentleman with a walker overtakes and passes them.

“Give me an hour with this thing and I can make it break the sound barrier,” Jace mutters, fiddling with the clutch angrily.

“Well, to be fair, I think it’ll take us an to get to the security checkpoint on this thing,” Izzy says. “So, I guess you’ll have the time.”

“We should probably just walk? That seems like that’d be faster?” Alec says, watching the scenery creep by.

Izzy and Jace look at each other. “Agreed.”

Alec scrambles off the cart

They get to the security checkpoint, where the TSA agent waves a wand across his body twice and it beeps each time. Another bored looking agent in ill-fitting slacks rifles through his bag, taking his laptop out and inspecting it like it‘s a bomb. It’s not; it’s just a shitty Dell laptop that he got half-price because he couldn't afford the Mac he really wanted. It mainly functions as a doorstop to keep the door propped open when his and Jace’s room gets too hot.

“Shit,” Alec says, “just keep the goddamn laptop.”

“Are you getting an attitude with me?” The first TSA agent asks.

He actually was, but it seems like an unwise time to point that out. “No, of course not.”

“Ooooh, I’ll take it,” Izzy pipes up from next to the metal detectors, carefully behind the line.

“Does he have that Bluetooth mouse packed? Because mine died last month and using the touchpad is for suckers,” Jace pipes up next to her.

While rolling his eyes so far back in his head, he swears he can see the inside of his own skull, Alec begs, “Just--let me get through this checkpoint, please,” acutely aware that his time is trickling away. “I’m not a terrorist.”

“That’s exactly what a terrorist would say,” Jace says, clutching Alec’s wireless mouse to his chest like it’s made of solid gold.

“Not helping,” Alec yells out after removing his shoes and belt. If he has to take off anything else, he’s going to have to start asking for tips.

When he’s finally waved through security, he glances back one last time to see Izzy and Jace arguing with the second agent on his behalf. They’re probably going to end up in an unmarked federal prison somewhere, but they keep going anyway. When his mom had said Izzy and Jace would always take care of themselves first, Alec hadn’t realized how off the mark she’d been. She doesn’t understand them at all.

“Hey, guys,“ Alec yells back, ignoring the warning looks he‘s getting from security. “I’m through. Feel free to divide up all my worldly possessions between yourselves.”

“Say hi to Magnus for me,” Jace says.

“Have good sex,” Izzy says, oblivious of the small crowd that’s formed around them, some looking horrified, the rest tittering with amusement. Izzy and Jace tend to have that effect on people.

Alec can’t die of humiliation right now -- he’s got better things to do. Maybe later, he promises himself. Face flaming, Alec turns to continue on alone.

  
\---

 

Once past security, the crowd thins, and his movement is fairly unencumbered. Alec races past the gates, thankful that he took up running again, counting down the gate numbers -- C11, C12 - until he reaches his destination and skids to a halt.

The waiting area is empty, and there’s no one at the desk.

Alec rechecks his ticket and the departure time. He’s twenty minutes too late.

He walks over to the window, staring at the airplanes on the runway. There’s one poised for takeoff, engines whirring. He doesn‘t know that Magnus is on it, but he might as well be for all the distance between them. Alec watches it roll forward slowly, gaining momentum, and then take off, disappearing into the clouds.

Alec staggers over to one of the hard, molded plastic chairs and sits down. He’d thought--doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know what he pictured. Life isn’t like the movies, there aren’t always happy endings.

Some things just aren’t meant to be.

 

\---

  
He walks back to the security checkpoint with slow, heavy steps, feeling like he’s aged a hundred years in the past hour. He's surprised to see Izzy and Jace still there, his duffle bag at their feet. They’re arguing about where to eat. Jace wants to find an all you can eat buffet and Izzy finds buffets unhygienic and unnatural.

“What are you doing here?” Izzy asks, clearly surprised to see them.

“I was too late,” Alec replies shortly. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to say. He’s spent his life trying to be everything for everyone and missed the one person who accepted him exactly as he was.

It’s taken him a lifetime and losing Magnus to realize he never had to be extraordinary to anyone else, just to himself. Magnus thought he was remarkable and Alec was beginning to believe it, too.

Izzy wraps an arm around his waist and leans her head against his chest. “Let’s go home,” she says.

Alec doesn’t even know where that is, though. Suffern never felt like home, and college was always temporary. He thought he’d found it with Magnus, but how can his home be flying across the world without him?

“We’ll go back to the dorms, and I’ll make Jace peel all your grapes for you. I’ll make you some tea,” Izzy says comfortingly.

“Oh my god, I hate tea and I don’t want Jace touching all my food. I know where his hands have been,” Alec protests.

“See? We’ll give you something to be furious about. Everything as usual.”

Alec appreciates what she’s trying to do, but he doesn’t want everything back to normal. He had a normal life before, but then Magnus changed everything, showed him exactly how different and exciting life could be.

“You’ll fall in love again,” Izzy says.

“Will I?” Alec asks, feeling like his chest is spilling open, broken and messy. It’s not a fraction of what he’ll be feeling tomorrow, but even this much is enough to take his breath away. It's the risk you take when you open yourself to love, and even now, broken-hearted and terrified of tomorrow, Alec can't say it wasn't worth it.

“Jesus, I don’t know, I’m only twenty,” Izzy says. “C’mon. I’ll drive.”

“Not if you want to make it to twenty-one,” Alec chides, screwing his eyes shut and taking deep, shuddering breaths. Izzy squeezes him tighter.

On their way out, they pass a Dippin’ Dots. “I didn’t know those were still around,” Jace says. “Awesome.”

Izzy pokes him sharply in the side.

“No, what, sorry. It’s just--how can things be of the future and yet so dated?”

Alec steps through the revolving doors first, grateful to be rid of the faintly-metallic, recycled airport air.

He squints in the bright sunlight, looking from side to side at the line of cabs, the Ubers, people rushing in and out around him. On one of the benches, his gaze snags on a glint of silver, and Alec stops so fast, his shoes catch on the sidewalk, and he barely keeps himself from toppling over.

He blinks twice to make sure it isn’t a figment of his imagination, some kind of bizarre fever dream brought on by lack of sleep and too much personal drama.

There’s Magnus, sitting on a metal bench, flanked by two unimpressed bodyguards, and eating from a small paper bowl.

Alec goes over to him, Izzy and Jace spilling out of the doors behind him. They’re arguing about something but stop as soon as they wee what’s caught Alec’s attention. “We’re going to go get the car,” Jace says. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

Though Alec is immensely grateful for the privacy, he can’t help but tell them, “Don’t let Izzy drive.”

Magnus’ guards get up and wander a short distance away and then it’s just Alec, standing above a nonchalant Magnus.

“Have you ever had these?” Magnus says casually, taking another bite. “They’re little frozen balls of ice cream called Dippin’ Dots. I generally disapprove of grammatical errors on food on sheer principle, but these are _delicious_.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Alec manages.

Magnus gestures at his ice cream. “Eating, obviously.”

He’s such a bastard, but Alec does have to admit that Magnus looks pretty cool.

Alec practically collapses on the bench next to him.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Magnus looks faintly embarrassed. “I might have thrown it and broken it in a fit of rage.” The sad, smashed bits of his phone are scattered next to him, a testament to his hideous temper and general zest for theatrics.

“So, you’ve been here the whole time?” Alec demands.

“No, I did a little shopping,” Magnus says, carelessly kicking at the piles of bags at his feet. “Did you know they make UGG boots in 63 colors?” He sounds thrilled.

“I, uh--” Alec says. “I was unaware of that fact.”

“Well, they carry at least 20 colors at the Duty Free.”

“How many of them did you buy?” Alec asks, vaguely frightened.

“Enough that my feet will never get cold again,” Magnus says smugly. He takes another bite of ice cream.

The ugly boots are an argument for another time, Alec decides. “Magnus, I have something important to tell you.”

“I assumed,” Magnus says, giving his ice cream a little stir.

“Would you stop trying to distract me!”

Magnus finally looks up at him, dark eyes wide and vulnerable. He swallows thickly. “I tried to leave, you know. I thought I could do it, but I got to the boarding gate and I just--Alec, I couldn’t leave things the way they were. So, I left and came back here and waited. Also, I bought some ice cream and did some shopping. I got a back massager from the Sharper Image, but I suspect it’s not meant to be used on backs. It vibrates rather aggressively.”

“Magnus,” Alec breathes. “All of the reasons we split up are still the same. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I don’t want a long distance relationship. My education is still important to me.”

“No, no, I get it. All those are fair.” Magnus is putting on a good show, but his voice wavers a bit.

“And you’re a prince--”

“Soon to be king,” Magnus corrects, looking miserable. He kicks his UGGs at a pebble and sets his overpriced ice cream down.

“Your Highness,” Alec says.

“You never have to bow to me,” Magnus says a little angrily. “How many times have I told you? None of those things are important to me. In everything but absurd height and fabulous wealth, we’re total equals.”

Magnus had told him _many_ times, actually. Alec just hadn’t been listening.

But he’s paying attention now.

“And I'm never going to, you stuck up asshole,” Alec says. “The thing is, how I feel about you has changed. Or it hasn’t, I’ve just realized some stuff.”

“Tell me,” Magnus says softly. He looks like he’s waiting for an executioner. Given his job title, it’s not an invalid fear to have.

“You believe in alien life.”

“It’s just common sense. In the vastness of the universe it’s crazy to think--”

“Chemtrails aren’t real, we really did land on the moon,” Alec interrupts.

“--but the shadows,” Magnus protests, and Alec stops him with a finger to his lips.

“Don’t ruin this.” Alec scoots closer, leans his forehead against Magnus’, close enough that he can hear the sharp intake of breath, see his incredible eyes, the lovely curve of his lower lip, up close and all-encompassing. “I‘m coming with you. At least for now. I can stay a while, defer the next semester if I have to until I can get into another program. But we‘re going to make this work.”

“Don’t say something you don’t mean,” Magnus says, looking like he’s desperate to believe it but unable to.

It’s another layer to his Magnus-mystery that Alec’s going to unravel.

“I mean it,” Alec promises.

“But why?”

“Because I love you,” Alec murmurs. “Because you make my life happier, brighter. Because you make me the very best version of myself.”

He hears a sharp intake of breath as Magnus’ eyes flutter closed, his eyelashes dark smudges against his cheeks. “Tell me again.”

“Because I love you,” Alec says, knowing exactly what he needs to hear.

“I never thought you’d say it,“ Magnus says, voice hushed. “I mean, I _knew_ , but still --I never thought I’d hear it.”

Who taught Magnus that was an acceptable compromise? Maybe partly Alec, maybe a lifetime of stories Alec doesn’t yet know, a bunch of little hurts that Magnus will share with him, piece by piece, like tiny breadcrumbs trailing to his heart. Alec will follow, and learn, and share in return for as long as Magnus wants him.

Alec looks down at Magnus’ bags, his busted phone, his melted ice cream. “I’m sorry I made you wait such a long time,” he says, but they both know he’s not talking about the airport.

“I almost got tired of waiting,” Magnus says. “It took you forever.”

“Tell me about it,” Alec says leans forward to kiss him. Magnus’ lips are cool against his and he tastes like strawberry and peach ice cream, like the first hint of summer, and like coming home.

This isn’t where Alec thought his life would take him. This isn’t even what he thought his day would look like, but sometimes life doesn’t give you the big movie ending you envisioned for yourself.

Sometimes, it gives you something far more real and even better than you had ever dared to hope for. And Alec? He's going to hold on with both hands, heart wide open, and enjoy the ride.

 


End file.
